Zooming… waiting
There seems a global pandemic is a great way to make a shift from over productivity to spinning in circles like a playful puppy loose in a fenced in area and too much energy to burn. I call it the zooms and I think I have caught it.
Since this global pandemic started, I have painted the exterior of my house, two rooms in the interior, changed two light fixtures, replaced a window, built a book case, added a little roof over the basement exit, fixed over twenty square feet of cedar shake siding, taken up a floor, laid a new floor, drywalled damaged walls… Shall I keep going? Did I mention that my father passed away in February and I have also, with my siblings, dismantled his possessions, prepped his home for sale? No? Well, that too happened.
You know you have the zooms if you too are filling hours with projects, zoom calls that perhaps don’t really land you anywhere moving forward. This spiralling around is a means of filling time and feeling productive. Sure, I feel I accomplished a lot and some of it really needed to get done. But I definitely added in projects to fill my isolation time.
Is it a problem? Well, last night I participated in a coaching call about transformation with Jessie Harold. She alluded to a Four Elements model of change. Loved it!!! And it absolutely resonated when she said, the air quality relates to the part of change where you do not yet know what the outcome will look like.
BAM! Exactly where the world is right now.
We don’t know what it will mean even when a vaccine becomes available. We don’t know if we will return to ‘normal.’ Just the other day someone and I were discussing whether we will return to businesses being open 24 hours, or have we figured out a new normal of efficiency in staffing and service delivery that will continue after this pandemic is not on the front page every day?
Let’s take a moment to consider… zooming isn’t necessarily bad, and it is definitely better than passing my time engaging in a variety of addictive behaviours. But it may also not be setting me up for the life I want to live today and tomorrow. Weeks and years from now.
This is an excellent time to get still. To be in silence and consider what you dream for what’s next. This is an excellent time to try new things that you have perhaps always wanted to try or used to do that got lost when your life got busy. This is a great time to explore possibilities.
I remember when I was in high school, girls took Home Economics and boys took woodworking. I always wanted to take woodworking. I have built most of the wood furniture in my home and I have never taken a class. I am enjoying my coffee this morning from my fog mug from Seastar Pottery. I love making pottery. With all this time, these are great things to experiment with, to engage my hands and my mind.
So what will you do? What thing is calling you?
