Giving Up

“You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.” – Sylvia Keesmaat

Giving up

“I remember being in my office late one night.  It was around 11:30 pm and I had just ended a phone call.  It was a call that informed me that the transaction I’d been working on, fretting over, and losing sleep over had just failed.  With the touch of my finger I ended the call.  Then I slumped forward, placed my hands under my head and felt a rush of relief.  I was so tired!  I was grateful to have this transaction fail!”  Sara Devereaux said as we talked.

It was a memorable conversation.  Perhaps it was so memorable because many of us can relate to this feeling.  It is a feeling that is best described as living in the land between.

The land between is a place where one is living an overwhelmed life.  A life filled with seeking as many efficiencies and conveniences as possible; a life of pursuing achievement.  It can often also be described as living with undermined meaning.

Sylvia Keesmaat decided to follow a hunch that her overwhelmed life, necessitated by a never-ending need for more and more efficiencies, could come to an end, so she abandoned her full-time university position in Toronto. Then she moved with her husband and children to a farm to a different kind a land between.  It was a farm in an area of Ontario known as the “Land Between.”  It is a place where each winter day begins by lighting a fire that will warm their farmhouse and provide heat for cooking.

I’m not saying that such a lifestyle change is superior to the kind with central heating, takeout food and twice-daily commutes.  And, not everyone has the option of chasing Sylvia’s chosen path. Yet, I am trying to point out that she made this choice because she decided to make time for what matters to her.  In order to do so she had to give things up.

“You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.” Sylvia said.

In this sense, giving up doesn’t mean quitting.  It means the opposite. It means you have to choose a few things and sacrifice everything else.  It means to stop living in the land between; a place where you’re continually overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks so you can be filled up.  Filled up with meaning and joy.  And, there is an art to living life, by giving up.  

Here is my attempt at painting such a life “by the numbers.”

First. Stop imagining that you will find room for everything important.  The vast majority of time management and self-help experts focus on fitting more and more in.  But, your time, and mine, are finite.  It is an inescapable reality.  We all have to choose what we will do with our time.

Second. Our time, and what we choose to do with it, is what defines us.  I remember one particular day, a pivotal moment, when I looked sheepishly at Sara and tied to excuse a lack of action with the comment, “I just didn’t have time to do it.”  Then I was immediately embarrassed because I knew I wasn’t telling the truth.  The truth was that I had decided that what I told her I would do was not as important as the other tasks I had chosen to complete.  She knew it and I knew it.  I made a vow to myself, at that moment, to stop living in such a duplicitous manner.

Third. Start living genuinely.  We all make hundreds of small choices throughout each day.  At the same time, we’re building a life.  Each small choice begins closing off the possibilities of countless other choices, forever.  Our lives, even the very best lives we could ever imagine, are a never-ending opportunity to wave goodbye to other possibilities as we usher in new, carefully selected, genuine possibilities.

Angela Dodson, my beloved coach, says, “We all make progress one decision at a time.”

Sara Devereaux taught a valuable lesson about the power of making one good decision at a time when she said. “I remember being in my office late one night.  It was around 11:30 pm and I had just ended a phone call.  It was a call that informed me that the transaction I’d been working on, fretting over, and losing sleep over had just failed.  With the touch of my finger I ended the call.  Then I slumped forward, placed my hands under my head and felt a rush of relief.  I was so tired!  I was grateful to have this transaction fail!”

It was a memorable conversation.  Perhaps it was so memorable because so many of us can relate to this feeling.  It is a feeling that is best described as living in the land between. The land between is a place where one is living an overwhelmed life.  It can often also be additionally described as living with undermined meaning.

We can all live a life of deeper meaning by choosing a few things and sacrificing everything else; giving up, one decision at a time.