Today I got so much done on important work projects that needed doing. I love my work, I must admit, and enjoy helping clients. I'm grateful for that. But I'm focused this evening on what I do with the time I am not at work. I've had a world of creative/hobby projects going this last five years or so, and I will not weigh down this post with my usual catalog of big successes and indifferent failures. Suffice it to say that I try to keep my free time interesting.
Amid all this activity, though, I wonder lately if I should find more ways to affirmatively help out in this big old world. I was reading one of those little "Gandhi wisdom" type books. I'm a big Gandhi admirer, though as with most prolific thinkers/writers, I must take the good and leave the parts that do not work for me. I am all for compassion and integrity in the struggle for justice, but not so fond of the idea that one should eat exclusively fruit, use earth packs as a cure-all or the insistence that intimacy is justifiable only when it is procreative in intention. His truth-force, though, makes me want to do more than I do.
Although my intuition serves me well, I like about myself that I'm a practical person. I like that I try to do creative things, as they are fun for me. But I wonder if I miss chances to really do something worthwhile in a more compassionate sense.
I'm not sure what the answer to these ponderings might be, but I do wonder if
I should not see my life more as a series of opportunities to do something than I do. I do a few worthwhile things, but far too few. I'm pondering how to do more. I also have pragmatic things that I need to do--mailings delayed, small kindnesses which remain undone.
I'm starting to wonder if the flow of things is not a bit deafening sometimes, and if I don't need to start listening inside for ways to help. I know that my strengths and weaknesses don't make me a good candidate for some rote "I am helping in this way, ain't I a saint?" type of pursuit. But a good head for pragmatic things is a gift in its own way, too. I must focus on how to use that gift.
Sometimes the greatest insight is finding the inspiration to help with what others disregard as the boring, unsolvable problem. I must focus on seeking insights on how to help a bit more than I do now.