Maybe you love solving complex problems. Or you adore philosophical discussions. Maybe you gaze longingly at the night sky. Or you get giddy when you see a fractal.
And then.
There’s laundry. Taxes. Legos under the sofa. Paperwork. Piles of styrofoam-that-you’ll-recycle-someday in the garage. Job stress. Homework. Peanut butter on the floor.
The sacred and the mundane.
You avoid. You procrastinate. You despair. All of those dull, repetitive, boring tasks. What you yearn for is the intellectual pursuit, the artistic creation or the ten day backpacking adventure in the forest.
Plus, you experience perfectionism.
And you have lots of sensitivities.
All contributing to your frustrations with the mundane tasks.
Man, oh man. This does not look good.
(Now some of you may have the personality traits that demand order and completion. You may deal better with the mundane. Even though you have the same long list of tasks, along with perfectionism and sensitivities. You have a need to clear the clutter and stay on top of your responsibilities before they start to overwhelm you. The stress of not addressing the mundane is worse than taking care of it. You don’t like it but your need for order overrides your sense of boredom. For this post, I’m not worrying about you. Unless, of course, the mundane has the upper hand. Then, read on.)
I’m guessing that you’ve tried many of the recommended techniques. You’ve met the Flylady. You use the 2-minute rule. You hire a bookkeeper or a housekeeper. You give yourself rewards. You invite the neighbors over. Your mother moves in.
And sometimes the techniques work.
Good.
But what happens when they don’t?
Then, we need to bring in the heavy hitters.
We ask the Dalai Lama. Thich Nhat Hanh. Martha Stewart.
They gaze at you and smile. Maybe they giggle. Oh, wait, Martha probably doesn’t giggle.
And they tell you something like: What if it’s all sacred? What if all of those boring, mundane, awful tasks are really sacred acts in disguise? What then?
(OK. Maybe Martha tells you how to make a cardboard playhouse for your cat.)
But, the more spiritualicious among us, suggest that one way to tackle the mundane is to find the love in it. Find the miracle in it.
Like this from Thích Nhất Hạnh–
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
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To my dear blogEEs: I realize that mundane tasks will still be annoying and problematic but I hope that this helps. Please let us know in the comments how you cope with the everyday boring stuff and also how you make the time for intellectual stimulation and creative expression.
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