FOR GETTING AGENDAS RIGHT
Monday Sept. 15, 2014
Checked my wish-list, agenda, plan – so much, not done.
Couldn’t do it all in a hundred summers.
Best times arrive in moments, worst times take months – take them completely over. Who schedules a worst time?
Pleasure, so fleeting.
While pain tends to linger. I’m for more pleasure, less pain, more joy and less struggle.
Unless struggle brings joy in which case I’m all for it – yes indeed, I’m all for that.
I’ve been wondering though, perhaps part of getting older rather than wiser, that bucket lists, laundry lists, short-lists and sticky notes littered walls and tables in our lives aside, they are simply window-coverings masking our viewpoint.
How much does it take, what adds up to enough?
Quality of moment, that hour, that precious morning or afternoon - summer nearly done, and what do we have to show for it?
I read this, just this morning. Stopped me cold:
‘is the most important thing really on your agenda?’
What is most important, and is it anywhere near my agenda?
I don’t know if something being on my agenda matters.
More important, whether I have focused intention, mind-set – tuned to that which is most important?
Looking backward or forward, like crystal balls – fuzzy and distorted.
Recent experience supports my view that giving something or some time to someone, reaching out when reaching-out was neither called for or invited – pays most unusual and precious dividends.
Sometimes lunch, phone chat, ravenous dining or card in my mailbox (thank you YF) – but these treasures are true wealth, not because we hoard them but because we give them away.
Give them time, without regard to today’s agenda.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: 4C/40F, perfection – clear sky, chilly breeze, warm suni-ness forecast. Gusta loves the chilly mornings – it seems she has more interest in speed, or maybe it’s the smells in the air. More likely, some force/influence I don’t recognize because I’m not a dog!
