Home > To Do
To Do List
On Sex and the City, Enid said to Carrie, "That's the key to having it all: stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like. It's true of the fall lines, and it's true of relationships."
I've decided that it's also true of my to do list. The key to getting it all done is to stop expecting it to look the way I thought it was going to look.
I started this to do list in high school, when one of my teacher's assignmements was to create a list of fifty things we wanted to accomplish in our lives. At the time, I had trouble coming up with fifty. I turned in an incomplete assignment. It seemed like so much. It didn't seem possible that I would have enough time in my life to accomplish all those things.
But it bothered me that I couldn't complete the list. I kept it and added to it as things occurred to me. By the time I got to college, I had completed the worksheet the teacher had given us and moved the list to a notebook so that I would have room to add more. I kept adding. I am still adding. I'm nearly to 600 things.
For a long time, I didn't actually check anything off the list. I would accomplish something on my list, but because it didn't look the way I expected, I didn't think it counted. Squirrel can tell you about the time she and I raised $200 for a local food bank and I asked if she thought that was adequate enough to check #31, Organize a food drive for the needy, off the list. When I added that item to my list, I had this idea in my head of sitting at a neatly organized table, collecting up boxes and boxes full of canned and dry goods and delivering them in person to families in need. Delivering $200 in grocery store gift certificates to the director of a food bank seemed pale in comparison.
Close friends starting reading my list when I posted it to this Web site a couple years ago. "Hey, I was with you when you completed #42," they'd say to me. "Why isn't it checked of the list?"
And I'd say, "Do you think that counts?"
And so my real lesson in releasing expectations came from Sex and the City. It was one of those moments when something clicks into place and suddenly the world makes perfect sense.
For a moment, anyway.
Announcement
My to do list is undergoing a major update. In the meantime, you can peruse the complete list.
