This was a learning weekend for me. My lesson had to do with deadlines and due dates.
Saturday got to work on the pool after I returned home from our office hours. Every year, my goal is to have the pool opened, clean, and ready to swim by Memorial day. This year, it has been a cool and rainy May, and I was away last week leading into Memorial Day, so I knew my self-imposed deadline wasn’t going to get met.
Even given the circumstances, there was a part of me that was NOT ok with that. I felt I was making excuses and could have done more work earlier in the month to accomplish the goal of having it open “on-time.” Here I was on June first and finally getting around to pulling the cover off. This initial “I suck” moment lead to a cascade of frustrating moments within the process…
First off, the cover fell into the water back in the winter which now has the water black. Secondly the water level was very low which means I had to get into the muck (because the cover fell in) and search for holes in the liner to patch, which I found about a half dozen). To top that all off, it was 90+ degrees and I’m not a warm weather person. I was cursing up a storm to say the least and it was not one of my finer moments as I wallowed in my own story.
I finally gave up, took a nap and woke in time for dinner. Have you or your spouse ever had one of these moments?
So after dinner Suzy reminded me that we had scheduled in some time to collect toys and children’s clothes from the attic and we had a couple more closets to clean out before this Saturday’s (June 8) Tag sale. She also went on to say that we may need to push the date back a week in order to get to everything. After being the one driving the clean-up for the past month, you would think this would make me happy to get to everything and miss nothing. Instead, this fired me up again…
I so dislike pushing deadlines back… that’s why they’re called deadlines. Deadlines are due dates, things are due on this date. Like a library book, if it isn’t returned there is a late fee assessed. I expressed my point of view and that we need to work harder to get it done “in time.” My wife is a very loving person, she quietly and calmly countered that she felt our “deadline” was more like a baby’s due date. That just because the doctor says this is when the baby is due, doesn’t mean that the baby is ready on that date. In fact, if the baby isn’t ready, it won’t be born, until it’s ready. The baby will be born, it its own time.
She went on to remind me that given we can’t control the weather and she didn’t expect me to climb into cold water that the pool will get opened when it is ready, even though it’s “due date” was Memorial Day. She reminded me that we were already “past due.” Same goes for the tag sale. If we aren’t ready for it, we can change the date and give ourselves time enough to do the job properly. She expressed that because it is life, there are no “late fees” or penalties for doing so. That becuase it is life, there will always be more to do, lest life itself stops.
As much as it angers me and touches my “laziness” and “get more done” buttons, I had to admit she is correct. The pool will get opened, the tag sale will happen. The lawn will get mowed. The fence and deck will get painted. It was a great lesson on deadlines, acceptance, and perspective.
And it’s really no different than when folks ask me, “how long do I have to be adjusted for?” When you are adjusted for life, you don’t stop and there are no “due dates.” You have an entire life to constantly improve yourself, one adjustment at a time.
Do you understand what I mean when I say “adjusted for life?”
Write a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s post.
