“Get your chores done first, then you can go out and play”.
Remember hearing that phrase when you were growing up? I do. Many the times I raced through making my bed, hanging up my clothes, and worse—having to get my homework done—and running outside before my Mom could think of something else for me to do.
As I grew up, “get your chores done first” became life’s mantra. Only now it sort of evolved into, “getting things done”. Do you have a “to do” list as long as your arm or longer? I certainly do. I generally think that it won’t always be this way, but the time has never come when free time looms in front of me.
The chores are never ending. When one chore is finished, inevitably, another one takes its place.
How can I go out and play when the chores keep compounding?
If I do go out and play, I come home to even more chores because I didn’t do the ones that were screaming at me when I left, and somehow, they multiplied while I was off playing.
There are all kinds of management books out there to tell us how to manage our chores, our money, our time and anything else we want to manage. How well are we doing? I don’t know about you, but I’m not doing so well. I got a daily planner that I try to parcel out my chores so I can spend some time playing. It’s not on my computer, but yours might be. Do you use it?
Maybe if we schedule in the play time, we can do it. The only thing is that sometimes it’s hard to enjoy the play knowing that I will go home to the screaming chores. Could this be a new discipline to develop? How can we train our minds to play fully and let the chores wait? Especially if there are deadlines.
Is that all life is about? Getting things done? Doing chores? Keeping up with the work in our lives? As one season blends into another, and Fall is turning into Winter, I just see an unending list before me. The seasons change, and the list goes on.
Surely there is more…
“You will show me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore” Psalm 16:11.
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