Do Less.

Do Less.

In my blog post titled “Whatchya-ma-school-it” I boldly and blatantly stated that, “you do not have to do everything that you think that you have to do.” I stand by this statement as a recovering people-pleaser and busyness addict. I was like Mr. Incredible whenever someone asked me to do something. I would be like, “Yea, I've got time.” Then what happened to him after he did all these seemingly “good things”? He was late to his own wedding. I can't help but imagine that his new wife felt less than a priority to the one person who was supposed to cherish her. In my poem “Beautiful, Glorious No” you can see how this useful tool of saying “no” too often goes unused. Then we collapse on the couch, submit ourselves to zombie status in front of the screen because we just “need” to unwind, relax, chill, whatever you call it. We yield to this value-less time all too often feeling justified because we voluntarily subjected ourselves and our families to a crazed level of busyness. There have been so many times when I thought, “Lord, there has got to be more.” Through His grace, which supercedes my stubbornness, He has shown me that there is so much more, but first I have to choose less.

I wish I could remember where I read it, but the analogy goes something like this: In the history of agriculture, man began to cultivate crops and develop strategies for improving yield and production. Along the way, one of the strategies was to provide enrichment for the crops, i.e. fertilizer. Any seasoned gardener knows that you have to “feed” your plants or they will become pale and lack nutritional content. So far, so good. Over time, however, this enrichment has replaced good practices like crop rotation, allowing the land to rest, and patiently waiting for nature to do its thing. Instead of allowing time and space, we, as a culture, have just thrown more fertilizer on the dirt, metaphorically shouting at the earth that it's taking too long to give us the fruit. More. More. More! If a little is good, then more must be better, right? SO. WRONG. Many of us know, now, the damage that we have caused from monocropping; one crop being planted over and over, lacking crop rotation, rest and replenishment. We expect the healthy balance that nature demands to just “work itself out.” Not our best plan.

Now, take this concept and apply it to our kids, to our families and our lifestyles. Enrichment comes in the form of piano lessons, soccer practice, girl scouts, youth group, gymnastics, martial arts, robotics/programming, art classes, and I could go on. All of these activities, I think we could agree, are enriching. But what happens when, instead of rest, downtime and rotating activities through, I just throw more enrichment at my kids? Let's add violin and basketball and ice skating and birthday parties. It would be like if we all stopped eating and only took vitamins and supplements. Many of you are cringing at the idea of giving up real food that you can chew on. Warm and savory. Cold and crisp. Brown powder filled capsules anyone? Yummy.

Enrichment is wonderful when carefully done. A little salt on my dish adds to the flavor and enjoyment of the golden baked potatoes, but if the cap of the salt falls off and dumps the whole contents of the salt shaker onto my dinner plate (like my brothers used to do to me), I think that we can all agree that the dish is ruined.

So, why dear sweet momma, do we continue to “season” our children's lives with more, more, and more? It's too much. We need downtime to allow our kids to be bored so that they can have the space to be creative, like God made them to be. We need unscheduled, unhurried time so that we can leave space to work out feelings and fears. We need a rotation of enrichment here and there to make like sweet.

When my family and I became “pursuant minimalists” back in 2020 (pursuant because I may never actually arrive) I started chopping away. First it was stuff. So, so freeing. I’ll post about that journey at another time. Then, thanks to COVID, every activity ever was removed from our lives as mandate. It forced us to ask, once we started getting back to our “regularly scheduled program”, WHAT do we, in fact, actually want to get back to? And you know what? We didn't go back to much. And it was glorious. Reading on the couch. Free time to hike when it was a beautiful day. Walks around the neighborhood to talk about life. Baking together. Creating something unexpected. GARDENING!!! All these things that we would not have had the bandwidth for if we got back to ALL the extra activities. I'm not saying that you should quit everything. Although it would probably be wonderful. What I am asking, on behalf of your children, (and your inner self that is crying out) is that you would do less. Choose 1 thing to not do. Then maybe one or two more.

Over the seasons, I've signed up for this and that (I claim amnesia) and inevitably the anxiety begins to creep back in and regrets over not having enough time to just live start to take over my thought life. So we get out the ax and start chopping away and it's so good.

Forget FOMO, I'm all about The Joy of Missing Out (great book by Tanya Dalton, BTW).

So take a minute and ask yourself, “Am I really living a full life or am I making up for “malnutrition” by adding another “enriching” activity to our lives?” This is no way to live, Sister.

Slow down and watch the rain storm, draw a picture with your kid, read a book on the couch, go for a walk/bike ride/run/roller skate, bake from scratch, take a nap and show your kids what a full, balanced, healthy life looks like. They only get one pass through childhood. And likewise, we want to have to be able to cherish motherhood with equal fervor, which requires space and time. Quality time AND quantity time.

Do less.

I triple-doggy-dare you.

…oh yea, I went there.