bury me with my to-do list

My self-worth use to be tied to everything I did, I was a student, I was working two jobs. I was saving money. I was doing so many things, yet I never had time for the things that I would always dream about. “When I retire…” I would think, yet I was 21 and retirement was many years off. I had a plan and I was going to stick to it, and gosh darn it, I would be successful. This amount of busy caused me to lose relationships that mattered, to prioritize others that really shouldn’t have mattered. I was losing everything I was taught to be, and instead of building myself into an ideal that I had no desire of actually being. As if to be successful in life I had to make sure I was everything the media portrays. I was rushing straight towards a life I wasn’t going to be able to escape. I was lost and without a way out, and it took its toll on me and my health.

If you’ve read any of my other articles, I bring up quite often the fact I had a bunch of debt. There was a period of time that I was in such a hole of debt, I doubted I could get out. I was a success fool. Anyone who saw me wouldn’t have known the debt I was in, just the lavish lifestyle I had cross stitched together. My life was dictated to me in the form of tasks and check boxes. I wasn’t close to the person I want to be. I was waiting for that figurative “one day.”

Suddenly, I had a moment. It was one year after my divorce. Everything that had happened to me was my fault, and my fault alone. Anyone in their right mind wouldn’t have wanted to be with me, hell, I didn’t want to even deal with myself. I knew that my values had been skewed, and because of that my outside life had been thrown into chaos.

I eventually sat down and made a new to-do list. It was a list that would ultimately change my life. While most of my lists up to this point had been restrictive; this one was freeing. It was a mindset, it was new values, it was simply understanding that I had everything I needed to make the changes.

I now start my days with coffee and decide the three most important things I want to get done that day. Sometimes I only have one really important thing to get done. I make sure I do that thing. Otherwise my days are a dreamy state of enjoying where the day takes me. I have taken quite a few of the decisions out of the day, like using food delivery services so I don’t eat out as much and cook at home more. In this new to-do list, I had “live everyday like my last.” Everyday, I am simply enjoying the moment. I am not dictated by others standards or priorities. I am simply being me. I write and read. I exercise. I play with my kiddo. I take naps and enjoy coffee in the morning, and a glass of wine at night. I make my bed most morning. I have simplified my life to a science that works for me. I am doing all the things I have imagined I would want to do on my last days, when I retire. I am not waiting for that moment, I am having that moment now. I hope that you too, stop waiting for the right moment, and instead make now the moment. I hope you sit down and make that to-do list that ultimately leads to the changes you want for yourself.