David Murray wrote a post last week that keeps popping into my awareness again and again. He’d read a book recently called ‘Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less’ by Greg McKweon. Murray lays out the main proposition of the concept of essentialism:
“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter.”
I’m not prone to reading books like this. I went through a phase where any ‘great idea’ business model book that came out was grabbed, read and put on the shelf. The problem was, I didn’t have very much discernment in what to leave in the books and bring into life. When it got too confusing or too overwhelming, I’d just leave it, ignore it or forget it.
I’m at a stage in life and ministry, however, where I definitely do not have the abilities, energy, time and other resources to do what I once tried to do. It’s a matter of recognizing the pressing need to ‘work smarter, not harder.’ So, I’ve been doing what I seem to always do when moments of clarity like this come over me: I’m working harder and trying to work smarter.
Perhaps this is why Murray’s post on this book is beckoning me. One of the many reasons this has been ‘haunting’ me is about two weeks ago, I took a piece of scrap paper and began laying out all the things that are on my plate. The entire side of the 8.5″x11″ piece of paper was filled with ministry activities, future events, weekly responsibilities, and more. And that was just ministry. I didn’t even have anything from ‘family’ on this mess. The attempt at this little project was to get a better grasp on everything I do so I could start making progress at this ‘work smarter, not harder’ concept. What it did was make me realize where I’m at, help me begin to reflect on how I got here and that it’s not a good place to be.
Murray makes this observation:
McKeown hardly needs to make the argument that the modern world has turned many of us into non-essentialists, but he traces this damaging trend to three factors:
1. Too many choices causing us to lose sight of the most important ones.
2. Technology and hyperconnectivity have increased the strength and number of outside social influences on our decisions.
3. The idea that we can do it all.
He underlines the necessity of fighting this trend with the story of hospice nurse Bronnie Ware who recorded her dying patients’ most common regret. At the top of the list: “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
This is where I seem to be…a place of inner turmoil that is seeking to be the ‘servant of all’ but wondering if I’m being the servant of none. Spiritually, I recognize that I cannot do it all. But there’s a very long life’s pattern here that doesn’t allow me to actually live that out.
Something has to give or something will break.
