Mind Clutter

I've been reading a lot of Zen books lately.  Since it seems this season of my life is focused on "letting go," I figure I need all the help I can get with that.  Recently, I read a passage in Zen Parenting: The Art of Learning What You Already Know.  The amazing thing is that the more I read the book, the more I found a lot of non-parenting messages.  Like this little gem:

"Mind clutter includes all those things we would like to focus on if we ever had the time.  When we don't focus on them, but focus on the need to focus on them they end up taking up a lot of mental space.  They turn into nagging annoyances that cause us to look for excuses, thinking about when we will focus on them.  Mind clutter causes us to leave the now where we should be living." 

Is this a writer thing?  A parent thing?  A woman thing?  We've become so good at multitasking and amassing guilt, that our brains spin out of control on a regular basis.  We obsess about all the things we aren't doing at any particular moment, and that "mind clutter" leaves us unable to perform the real tasks we're doing in the now to the best of our abilities.  We're so busy thinking about the tasks we want to do later - when we have more time or energy or money or whatever - that we just aren't present.

If we want to write, we should write.  If we choose to do something else and write later, so be it.  Write later, but live now.  We're big girls and boys.  We make choices.  Personally, my challenge is making those choices.  I leave several things in limbo, piddling around here and there, not doing anything really well.  I need to get back to making choices, deciding what I want to do, and defining the seasons of my life.

For now, that means family time.  I'm in hibernation mode.  That means snuggling, eating, and reading at home and under as many blankets as possible.  I want to enjoy the holidays and this quiet time in my life.  I don't want to feel weighed down by half of an unfinished novel.  So, I'm giving it two weeks.  I'm not ruling out the potential for writing a little during the period of time, but I'm not going to focus on it.  At all.  I'm going to live in the now and enjoy this season of my life.  In January, I'm going to pick up and move on and focus on finishing this draft.  But, until then, I'm going to live in the now and let go.