Doing Everything

I'm the kind of person who feels insignificant if I'm not doing a lot of stuff. In my heart, I want to do more to serve my community, but I'm in no position to do so. And it's painful to me! But then I realize from those that I serve that the little that I am able to do means so much to them.

When I give away free fruits and veggies, I tend to "over-give." It's common for me to hear someone say, "Oh my! That's too much!" For me, it's not too much. I think it's not enough. We all need to be eating more and more fruits and veggies, especially if you could get them for free. But everybody doesn't see it that way. People know what they would eat, how much they would eat, and how likely they would waste something. It's no good for them to get a ton of free fruits and veggies if most of it would go to waste in their homes.

I have a neighbor who takes very little produce from me. I'm thinking, "Really? That's it??" But for her, the little that I give is just enough, if not slightly more. She doesn't want anything to go to waste, so she doesn't take much from me.

We need to realize that doing more isn't necessarily better. Sometimes, it could cause more harm than good. Doing very little of the RIGHT THINGS is more important than doing a lot of EVERYTHING.

I think about the current education patterns in the U.S. We want kids to learn EVERYTHING. We want them to learn English literature, history, social studies, geography, math, biology, chemistry, economics, you name it. They come home with a load of homework, staying up until who knows how long trying to finish up all their projects. In addition, their parents have them signed up for soccer, music, theatre, debate, fencing, and chess. Do you think that child would be great at anything? Of course not! Yes, he may be good at a lot of things, but he won't be exceptional in anything. She may be educated about everything, but would be an expert in nothing.

Let me tell you, we are more in need of specialists than generalists. We need more people who are FOCUSED on one thing than people who are spread out thin over a wide range of subjects.

When you're tempted to do more, don't. If you want to feel more useful, then work on doing more with what you already have instead of finding more things to do. Before you even move on to the next project, ask yourself if you have done all that could be done with what you already have.

For example, my 13-year-old daughter started taking an intense interest in gardening. We would go to the garden centers looking at plants, and she would get excited about all the plants she saw. I helped her build up her own garden with a variety of plants. Lots of plants. Too many plants!

Instead of buying her a lot of plants (from the discount section, of course), I should have just let her have a few plants to see how well she would take care of them. Her garden started looking raggedy with several dying plants. She barely went out to take care of them. I found myself watering her plants. I told her that if she doesn't start taking care of her plants, I would start taking those plants for myself.

We adults are the same way. We want to do everything, but find ourselves slacking in everything, too. We want to do this, that, and the other, but with so many things that we're doing, we can't possibly be great at any one of them. I should have told my daughter that she could take care of one or two plants and do all that she could do with them. Then she could move on to getting another plant.

Before YOU move on to the next thing, were you able to do all that you could with what you have? Or did you do very little with it, got bored, and want to do something else? You cannot thrive in life by always moving on to the next thing while leaving the other things still undone.

So slow down. Stop trying to do everything. All you are is busy being busy. Doing more activity will not make your life richer, but poorer.