Truth Bomb Tuesday: Don’t let the dishes hold you back from happy.
“The dishes are never done.”
There are two types of people in the world. The first hear a statement like this and tumble into depression. The other hear this and feel liberated into joy.
(Ok, maybe I’m overselling it a bit.)
But the point I’m making is that I think we can all agree that the dishes are never done.
Life never lets up on giving you things that ‘need’ doing.
There’s always new dishes to wash. Gutters to clean again. Grass to mow. Children to drive to footy practice.
… Bills to pay. Taxes to prepare. Investments to make and watch over.
And that’s all before we even get to the tyranny of a day-job, where somebody pays you to do the same stuff over and over.
Even for me, there’s always a thousand things on my to-do list. Money can’t save you from this.
There are always jobs to do. The dishes are never done.
So what do we do with this.
Well, as I said, there’s two options.
The first is to feel defeated. It’s to realise that we’ll never master our mountain, that it’s really hard to get ahead, and to throw your hands up like Daffy Duck and say “Aw, what’s the point?”
The second is to see this an invitation – an invitation to step into your own power and responsibility.
The dishes are never done. You’re never going to get to a point in your life where all of your ‘shoulds’ are exhausted.
Even if you do your tax, you should probably get some more exercise.
Even if you set up an sweet portfolio, you should probably spend more time with the kids.
Even if the gutters are clean, you should probably read more poetry.
You should, you should, you should.
The should never stop.
If you’re waiting for a time when there’s no shoulds in your life so you can do your “I wants” it’s never going to happen.
No, so you need to stop and make space for your “I wants” right now. Don’t wait for permission from an empty to-do list.
Make space for them right now. Take that responsibility. Do the things that bring you joy.
So many of us ‘defer our happiness’. It even has a name “Deferred Happiness Syndrome”. We put off doing the things that make us happy because we feel like we just have too many shoulds right now, and there’ll be time for happy later.
There isn’t. The shoulds never end. The dishes are never done.
And once this realisation drops – once your realise that you’ll never conquer your ‘shoulds’ – then you’re free to just do what you want.
Your should – at least some of them – will just have to wait.
It’s too easy to just coast along from one should to another, letting them lead you by the nose.
It takes bravery and a commitment to yourself to say, no, today I’m leaving the dishes where they are.
Today, I’m going to do what makes me happy.
This is about as radical as it gets.
DB.