Color-coded Schedule

 

Color-coded, line by line, every minute accounted for.  Every day is packed to the fullest.  Nothing is left to chance.  It is all planned out.  We are in control.  Look at us, we must be powerful, important, and needed.  Just look at the calendar attached to my hand.  The one no one can live without.

I am at my bar coordinating the electrician, the new door installation, and the bathroom painting while submitting employee work hours for the week.  I would like to say that today is a particularly busy day, but it’s not.  And yes, the bar is open so there are customers to serve drinks as well.

The schedule is multi-colored.  Each color is for a different life area that must be tackled.  Work, meetings, errands, appointments, friends, birthdays, travel, …. There is a color for everything.  There are task lists, reminders, messages, emails, and so much more. 

It is a point of pride to show off the calendar and have people gasp “wow, you’re so busy/organized / have a lot going on”.  But it’s not just me.  It is everyone.  Our phones are one step from being surgically attached to our bodies.  If Google went down, would anyone know what to do?  If we lost them would we even know how to call for help?

There is a free minute here or a couple of hours there.  Total panic sets in if a whole free day shows up.  We race to fill it.  Everything must be scheduled.  We all must keep busy.  What hell would break loose if we were ever left alone with our thoughts?  Left alone in silence or to just be?  What would happen if we had to face ourselves?

Our lives are scheduled to impress.  Line items, task lists, and reminders are crossed off one after another.  It’s a badge of honor.  Look what I did.  Look how great I am.  I got all this done.  All this to show the world. But is anyone looking? 

Here are all the things I still need to do, accomplish, and finish.  Then I can slow down.  Then I can do what I really want to do and be the person I want to be.  What are we trying to prove?  To whom are we trying to prove it?  Has the “done list” become our value as humans?

Burnout is inevitable.  We spend the day/hours on the couch binge-watching.  Even that turns into a point of pride.  “I finished the whole season of ……   this week” in a tone meant to say, “here’s one more thing I got done and you didn’t”.  Even when slacking, I still got something done.

What happens when our bodies have had enough?  When we get sick and can’t get out of bed.  Or something disrupts the plan.  We are forced to face the fact that we are not in control.  Things go undone.  Workouts are missed, the lawn isn’t mowed, and the 3-hour meeting is summed up in an e-mail. Life goes on.  The sun rose and set.  The world kept spinning.  No one died.  Life continued without the plan, the color-coed perfection we so carefully crafted.  Life continued and we were not in control.  But then we never were.   

So why do we try so hard to prove our self-worth with something so mundane? Is it really who we are?  No, humans are more.  There is no way, to total, our self-worth in an easy-to-use app. 

There is no way I am giving up my schedule, the color codes, or any of the apps.  But I will not be ruled by it.  What gets done, gets done.  The to-do list can wait.  It can all wait.  Time for me.  Time for something not on the schedule.