As we get closer to a new year, I have been taking stock of the things in my life and thinking about the things I would like to change or accomplish in 2018.

I don't make formal New Year's Resolutions... I find them to be a burden, and then we end up feeling bad about ourselves when our good intentions head down the toilet after a couple of months.

Our Heavy Loads

Modern life can be burdensome. 

There are always SO many things we feel we need to be part of, or do, or accomplish in order to feel like we are being "successful" at life. Those are pressures we tend to put on ourselves... real and imagined.

There's also no doubt that we are bombarded with more and more "content" we are expected to keep up with-- whether it's work, family, the news or something else. Those are external pressures that seem to squeeze us a little bit tighter, every year.

Misguided Advice

Thankfully, there's lots and lots of good advice out there!

How to manage your time better, how to train yourself to multi-task more effectively, how to schedule your day... there a books, and courses, and apps and workshops.

There's a problem with all of these, however: They ignore the possibility that we may simply have "too much stuff" on our plates!

Some BETTER Advice?

Some months back, I found myself reading a magazine in the doctor's office waiting room and came across a small sidebar article.

It touched on this exact same issue, in that instance as it related to people's work lives: The answer to feeling like you're always working and feeling overworked is NOT to get better organized and take a workshop on time management... it's quite simply to WORK LESS.

Now many would protest and say "But you can't just DO that!"

Why not? What is it you believe you will miss out on, if you're not running at top speed, 24/7?

At A Retreat Many Years Ago

Almost 20 years ago, I was at a retreat in Austin, Texas... where I also met one of my Spiritual Teachers.

Hale was a very energetic fellow, and he liked to use colorful analogies. 

During one of his presentations, he likened our lives and the "stuff" (physical, emotional, psychological) we carry around to a chair.

Some people carry around bright and shiny new chairs, some have old chairs, some have comfy recliners. Some claim to not have chairs, yet they constantly stumble over their chair and feel surprised that there was "something" there. Others lovingly tend to their chairs and are always painting and polishing them, and inviting others to look at them. Some people's chairs are heavy, some are light. Some people even carry several chairs... and some "helpfully" offer to carry other people's chairs... mostly so they can loudly complain about how heavy their burdens are. 

Whatever form the chairs take, they are what we take upon ourselves. 

For the next part of the exercise, Hale asked the room for suggestions on how to better deal with these burdens. Many creative ideas were offered, from putting wheels on the chairs and using them for transportation to attaching balloons so they would float.

"I'm afraid you've all missed the point," he eventually offered, "the answer is simply to PUT YOUR CHAIR DOWN."

Breaking Free From the "But I HAVE To" Trap

The purpose of the exercise was of course to get everyone to see how we all carry around a lot of burdens-- emotional, physical, psychological, societal-- that we have persuaded ourselves we "have to" carry.

The answer-- more often than not-- isn't that we need to learn to manage how to juggle these things more effectively, the answer is that we simply have to LET GO of the illusion that we "must" carry them.

Just because society "expects" us to do something, doesn't mean we "have" to.

Just because friends and family think we "should" have a certain work or lifestyle doesn't mean we "have" to.

Just because we tell ourselves that we "should" be able to do certain things do not mean we "have" to.

One of my resolutions for 2018 is to make my "plate of stuff" smaller, and just set down a bunch of all these things, mostly related to having and doing.

How About YOU? Do you have things-- burdens-- you're carrying around that you really don't need to? Do you feel overworked? Are there things you are doing for others that they actually should be doing for themselves? Do you relate to the "chair" analogy? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

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created by @zord189

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171230 17:06 PDT