Life on the Treadmill

Ever feel like you're going as fast as you can and still can't keep up? Life has felt this way for me for a long while now. Over the past several years I've cut back on the number of activities I do, but still find myself falling behind on many fronts. This wears on a person after a while. Sometimes I wonder if I've allowed myself to get stuck in a rut or if I just had gotten behind on so many things that I grossly underestimated how long it would take to get caught up.

As I look around me I can see where I've made progress on the house, yet so much left to sort through and organize, recycle, toss, give away or put aside for the next garage sale.

In my enthusiasm for getting involved in model trains I bought a bunch of engines and rail cars, as I've posted on in the past. Now I realize I WAY over did it and should sell a good portion of it. Hmmm, sounds like another project. Surely an example of how buying a bunch of things, more often than not, doesn't bring happiness or fulfillment; just more troubles as you have to take care of and deal with it all.

Now that the big project I mentioned at work has wound down, I'm back to working my normal allotment of hours, 20 hours a week. During the time I worked 40 - 50 I felt a feeling of satisfaction at the end of the week with all I had accomplished. Now I feel overwhelmed, as my "to do" list grows faster then my ability to keep up with it. I've mentioned this to my bosses boss, who replied, "Join the club". She did suggest if I really thought this becoming a problem that I track what I do each week in order to make a case for going to 75% or 100% time down the road. Sounds like a good idea.

On the friend front I find myself torn between setting aside more time visit with my various friends, mostly in the Battle Creek area, vs. staying home to focus on house stuff. I'm always glad to see and do things with my friends, yet the house goes undone for yet another week.

I'm not one of those perfectionist types who can't stand a speck of dust in any corner. I just want to get my house into sufficient shape so I can have guests over without having to move stuff to make room for them to sit and have a suitable guest room to accommodate an occasional overnight guest.

Yet simple things like keeping up with the mail conspire against such a simple aim. How do people keep up with their mail??? I don't think I do anything over the top. I open the junk mail, shred anything with personal info. on it and put the rest into the recycle pile. I scan through my magazines and read the articles I find interesting. I aim to read newsletters from my missionary friends. Yet my pile slowly grows.

Do most folks just throw stuff out without even looking at it? Do they ever read the magazines they subscribe to? Do they read newsletters from friends, organizations they support and companies they do business with? Am I just a slow reader?? Do I spend too much time on the internet??

I want to get my life back into shape so I can do the things I used to do, like go on mission trips, help people out, etc. Yet it seems to happen at a glacier pace which I find incredibly frustrating. Makes me wonder if I've missed something somewhere about how to live life or how I've structured my own life that's dragging me down. Perhaps this what folks often refer to as a mid-life crisis?