“ Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
~ Mark Twain
Do you ever get so busy you forget what you’re doing?
Sometimes you can see it in another person‘s face. Just the other day I was in the office of someone I work with and I said “You look like you’re trying to fit 6 pounds of oranges in a 5 pound bag!”
I mean, let’s face it, there’s busy, and then there’s swamped. Busy is when you have a lot on the ball and maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ve got your head down in a creative project and it totally absorbs you.
Swamped is more like you can’t even remember what you did with your to-do list.
Personally, I love being busy. Not just busywork, but actually having a lot of interesting things to do. And I firmly believe that the old saw rings true: If you want to get something done, ask a busy person.
People who can get things done usually have full schedules. Folks with a lot of time on their hands sometimes create that through the sleight of hand known as procrastination.
Here’s the Pro Tip. Use presence as your barometer. Keep adding in the good stuff to your life until you’re humming along at a lively clip. But only up to the point where you feel like you’re in the flow and still on top of things.
If you pass that tipping point where you find yourself forgetting your phone or wondering what happened to your keys or forgetting to call someone back, take that as a sign that you might just be a wee bit preoccupied and you should dial it back a little bit.
And always, always, prioritize. It’s fine to keep track of what’s going on in the world beyond your control, but at the same time don’t take your eye off the ball. Remember to zoom in on your own sphere of influence and keep making progress on your goals.
There’s nothing like an upcoming journey to focus your attention as the vanishing point of departure closes in. We are on the eve of a railway voyage, something of a rarity in today’s world.
As luck would have it, this particular trip makes more sense by land rather than air, plus we are taking a sleeper in the spirit of slow food and dignified travel.
So as our pre-trip preparations reach a crescendo, I wish you the very best in the week to come and will continue reporting to you from the high frontier!
Much love until next Monday!
M+
Mark Metz
Director of the Dance First Association
Publisher of Conscious Dancer Magazine
