How much did you have to do today? The list around the Holidays seems endless. Around the rest of the year, maybe it’s just as long as your arm. To do at work. To do at home. Things I want to do this week, this month, this year…someday. And, what if we measure our worth and our value by what we have accomplished in a day. Suddenly we are not who we are but what we manage to do. Sure it feels wonderful to have completed that list- even though we always know there will be more to do. But, in the midst of all this doing , this never ending to-do of life, how is our "being"?

Have you ever had a day where at the end of the day you say, "I got nothing done that I wanted to do today" or "today was a total write off, a loss", or "I was totally unproductive." Mmmmm. I know I have those days at what has become almost predictable intervals. If the perception is that nothing was accomplished that day, then what was the purpose of it? If I think I have "wasted" the day then certainly I won’t see much value in it. Could there have been a deeper reality going on? Could there have been some "reason" for a day like that? Could it be that the "state of my being" just would not allow for one more doing? Perhaps a break had to be taken before the doing of life left me completely undone.

When even meditation and prayers hit the "to-do" list and I am overwhelmed by the desire to accomplish and to achieve to the exclusion of my general well being then perhaps that being will semi-paralyze me to get my attention and say "Balance, my friend, stop and ask what all this to-do is about!" In my own personal history I have noticed that when I fall "out of balance" something in my world grabs my attention- like a bad cold, a mini-crisis, a friend’s need, that seems to line up my priorities and draw my attention back to my well-being and in fact my "raison d’être", my purpose if you will. If I don’t stop, then it seems something stops me. I remember in the fourth grade when we were studying magnetism. If you held a iron rod, faced north and hit it with a hammer it became magnetic. There are days when I completely know how that iron rod must have felt- whacked to line up its molecules.

What is so bad about an unproductive day? Have I fallen short of my expectations? Someone else’s? What was really needed on that day that I was unaware of? Did I need support that I forgot to ask for while I was busy being a martyr and lamenting how much I had to do? Did I need a moment to rest? Did I need to halt the onslaught of information to digest some of it? Did I "just need a break" that I felt I couldn’t possibly take for any number of rational reasons? Did I waste a lot of time asking myself all of the above questions?

The point that I am attempting to make here is that unproductive days are productive and necessary so why beat yourself up for having them. Maybe your whole perspective on life and the process of living it will change. And, like the tiny atoms that are constantly in motion, or the fact that the cells of your body are busy replacing themselves, maybe more is happening than meets the eye. The perception that a day has not been productive, might not let us see that indeed something wonderful may have occurred. And, I’ll bet it’s pretty challenging to relish the smell of the roses when you are running through the streets with them to get to the next thing you have to do.

I submit that there is indeed a natural timing that resides within all of us. To quote the Turtles and the Bible- "to everything there is a season." I’d hate to be standing out in the snow in my speedo bathing suit with a beach ball. It sounds silly but when I go against my nature and my own timing I may be totally exposed to the elements. Our natural timing knows when to sow and when to reap, when to act and when to rest, and even though the world seems to move faster each day our nature is totally adaptable. We just have to be still long enough to hear its directions. And just like we don’t fly off the planet even though we are spinning and hurtling through space and billion of miles per hour our inner gravity can keep us grounded. I know, I know, there is always lots to do! And that may not change. It’s not how much there is to do that counts its how you do it and how you relate to it all. And every once and awhile an "unproductive" day can give you just the detachment and perspective you need that will allow you to have your life rather than it having you.