My life seems to always have been about measuring.
Measuring my progress against professional goals, measuring my weight, my activity, my expectations, my project progress ... you name it, I have measured it. And although I have seen positive elements to measuring stuff, I have also wondered if the act of measuring has negatives as well.
I follow a blog called ZenHabits. Zen ... sounds like something that evolved out of 1960s thinking. But it is a site that sometimes posts pieces that ring a bell with me. That happened recently. The blog post is called "Untrack: Letting Go of the Stress of Measuring." The link is here.
As I read this piece I could see myself in many places. Somehow it always seemed important to document, to see improvement, to measure. After reading this blog post, I decided to simplify and to limit this measuring monkey I have allowed to ride on my back for years.
After careful thinking I have decided to limit my measuring habit to two areas:
- To see accountability in my walking life, measuring my progress in Walker Tracker makes sense. It helps me see how active I am and it help me continue to be active. Activity is vitally important to my health.
- Keeping track of my yarn stash is also productive. It help limit my spending in that area.
But all measuring methods that I have layered all over my life in other ways just have to go. It eats up too much time, adds stress that isn't necessary, and does not add any real value.
Hope you have a chance to read the ZenHabit blog post.
5 comments:
I will read that post you mention, and I like the idea of cutting back on measuring.
We are always measuring ourselves in some way aren't we? What a good idea, at this point in life, to let it go.
Good post! Especially at this time of year. Measurement and list making can both quickly become stressors, for me anyway. I do tend to quickly slide into overdoing it with them both. I highly recommend "Plain and Simple: A Woman's Journey to the Amish" by Sue Bender. I bought it when I was quilting and thought the focus was on Amish quilts but it turned out to be much more than that. I re read it occasionally as I try to enjoy every activity for itself.
I follow that blog to, and that was a good post. :)
Thanks for the link. The post was great and gives me a lot to think about, or maybe, to not think about -- "Do for the love of doing, for the love of others." Most of the time it is better to just do.
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