Busy Women Along with Sweet Idleness

Certainly working mothers usually have too much to do and have been known to get bad attitudes as a result! So what can we do about our harried, often over-stressed lives? How do we decide what is important to do and what isn't?

There have been thousands of books, articles, columns, and sayings written about this question. Recommendations and advice for everyone from CEOs to kids with lots of homework abound. If there is so much information out there about managing time and stress why aren't people doing a better job with them?

I think it is because people are ignoring some important facts.

First, in order to take charge of your life you have to BELIEVE that you can. If you secretly see yourself as powerless or doomed to be a victim, then you will not be able to help yourself. Who is running things, you or your kids? Are you important in your own life?

Second, you have to look at some of the thinking that has gotten you so overwhelmed. Is it keeping up with the Joneses? Is it wanting your kids to do everything you didn't? Is it the inability to say no? Do you stop to evaluate whether all the demands on and requests to you are important or even worthwhile?

Third, you really have to think that a slower, simpler life is valuable. Many people use busyness as a way to avoid other things and don't want to give it up. Others have been raised to think along the lines that? Idle hands are the Devil's workshop? Can you see value in just listening to the wind, or going on a walk with no destination?

Where are you in all of this? What would it be like for you to limit the kids to one sport per season? To say no to the voluntary overtime? To refuse a job because of the 1-hour commute? To not commit yourself to bake 6 dozen cookies for the 3rd grade class? Think hard about the choices you make and why you make them.

I am old enough to remember the advantages of being bored as a child--long, hot summer days with no pool to go to, no TV to watch, and certainly no computers to use. I think all kids should experience boredom now and then. It gets them to talk to each other (or you), read books, dream dreams, and just relax. I think adults need time like that, too.

In fact, I love the Italian saying ? Dolce far niente?, or ? It is sweet to do nothing? I believe we need to cultivate more empty spaces in our own and in our children?s lives. Often when we plan vacations we are looking for that unstructured time but end up in noisy, crowded, over-stimulating places instead. (Theme parks and the like are perfect examples).

Why don't you make an evening or even a weekend with nothing planned happen for you and your family? Just think, you can make dinner whenever you want, you can all mosh on the sofa to watch a movie, or you and a kid can play jacks or catch together. Try not answering the phone - now there's a revolutionary thought! Look into each other's eyes and forget the soccer schedule. Plan to be late to work one morning and drive the kids to school so you can all have a pancake breakfast together and you never have to say ?Hurry up?

You can make any of this and more happen in your life and in your family if you really want to. Think about what is most precious to you and how quickly time passes, and then, Just do it. As you lie dying it is the choices you have made for the quality of your life that you will remember and cherish, not how much money you made or where you lived. Build in that sweet idleness and see how much richer your life gets.