Product, product, product = life’s receipt.

In an effort to save {time}, life’s return might total= unrest, anxiety and discontentment. In our over-stimulated society we are hurried from task to task in effort to efficiently find/save time. Within the margins of daily-planner there is little space left for much else at all. The fact is life’s demands are many and time consuming, this is true.

However, in the ‘now’ of life, time can only be used, not saved. Life is about the process and not the product. This is key to finding life’s receipt at the end of the day=rewarding, refreshing, and empowering {and yes still probably tiring}.

When life gets busy, we seek time efficient, multitasking solutions to alleviate some of the day’s pressure. Why wouldn’t you do two things at once? All these strategies potentially are good within themselves. The danger is the notion that lurks behind these helpful tactics.

Our life is a process/development. This can range from our mental development, spiritual growth, capacity to love others, developing professional skills, habits, relational skills, etc-very much a give and take of learning and unlearning. The point is that life, your life, never stops growing and developing-a ‘Work in Progress’ sign should be hung around our necks, to remind us that we are always becoming.

How we approach the day, our schedule and our time reflect how we view our own development. We all have responsibilities and obligations of the day but it is more about how we approach each day, every minute of our life.

‘The more the better, the cheaper even better, and the quicker/faster-the best’- is the rhetoric of our over-consumptive culture. This is what shapes us when we are unaware of our life. We become the product of our society. We sprint from task and obligation to the next task to be efficient and save time. This again is a good strategy-if consciously balanced. Typically we believe that if we get all the to-dos done by the end of the day-we will have saved enough time for ourselves to relax and breathe.

Life can become an endless list of things to get done. We feel urged to do them fast/effective/efficiently so that there is time to do other things, like relax and have down-time??. What gets negated or overlooked is the actual process itself. Our tasks and lists become the final product that we are striving to check off and we lose the entire process of each of these obligations.

We become so consumed with efficiently finishing our daily tasks in order to save for the more enjoyable/relaxing moments, that each and every day becomes less of a natural process and more about the end product-all the items checked off in the least amount of time.

This approach keeps us virtually unaware of the present moment because we are simply trying to get to the next task, much like the anxious shopper pushing to get to the next aisle.

The future, up there, around the corner, at the end of the day, or the someday mentality robs us of the NOW. At this pace life’s receipt at the end of the day leaves us feeling incomplete, restless, and anxious. When life becomes more about quickly finishing each task at hand and less about being in and aware of each task’s process, than we are the ones being spent.

To use each day in the now we have to unlearn/learn the vital importance of each moment, the present moment and the natural process of each task. For instance, how can we become more aware of ourselves when committing to something as simple as washing the dishes, washing our bodies, waking the children, feeding our bodies, etc? Each and every one of our daily tasks are processes in and of themselves and it is up to us to approach these tasks as either: being aware of every minute within each process or just another obligation that needs to be quickly checked off the daily list. Again, we have a lot of learning and a lot of unlearning to do in order to get to this point.

Life isn’t about the product, the rush to get to the end of the day; but about the process and development of ourselves by being aware of our time within each process. The clothes still need to washed, the bellies still need to be filled and all the other obligations of the day need to be meet but the fundamental challenge still remains: Are we aware of each minute within our day and living within the process of our every task?