Getting Things Done vs. Spending Time Investing

Want to know what I hate? I truly hate waking up to a messy kitchen. To me, that is the worst way to wake up. How does that picture invite you to have a nice, calm start to your day? How does it say: Come and make a cup of coffee, sit and relax?

It doesn't. To me that kitchen says: Girl-you slacked off last night and didn't do what you were supposed to do. Get your butt in gear and start cleaning right now.

Man, I hate starting my day that way! Granted, it was a choice to not do it last night. I was tired and just wanted to take a bath. So I did. I took a long, hot bath and I snuggled with Boo Bear and I sat with my husband. I didn't tackle the kitchen.  I left it. I made different decisions, although I knew it would be there for me in the morning.

So why is it that we make decisions which we know are going to bite us in the butt later? I truly don't know. I'm sure there is some science behind it and someone has done a psychology thesis on it. I'm sure there is a lot of mumbo jumbo in there about risk analysis or something...but let's talk about making choices of Things vs. People for this article. Granted, these are just my opinions, and we all know the saying about opinions. Everyone has one..just like a....... belly button.

So, which do you value more? Getting Things Done or Spending Time With Loved Ones? There is no wrong answer -for you. Again, it is your opinion. Growing up, my Mom was more concerned about getting things done and spent more time cleaning and picking up than spending time with us. I have about 1 handful of memories with her. This isn't good or bad. It just is. I am not angry about it. I do not resent her. She and I are great friends now. She made those decisions based upon her wants and needs, with her history story behind it.

You see, we each approach our present moment with the scripts and movies of yesterday playing in our head, for better or for worse, it is what it is. We react to something in the present based off of an experience from our past. We plan for the future based upon experiences from our past. I mean, let's be honest here, who hasn't ever sat alone in their car preparing for a conversation with someone which we thought for sure was going to happen and we wanted to be prepared only to be shocked when it didn't happen like we planned?! We've all done it. If not, please do so later today so I don't feel like such an idiot. :)

Getting Things Done isn't bad. It has a sense of accomplishment. Dishes in the sink? Do them and they are done. Dirty clothes? Wash them and they are clean.  There is a beginning, middle and end. For now, let's pretend those two things do not actually constantly go in a  rotation as quickly as they do (at least in my house).

Spending Time With Loved Ones? Oh, that can be exhausting! It means not doing what has to be done and more piling up on top of whatever is still there! It means investing part of ourselves. It means being vulnerable. It means-risk.

Ah, risk. Something we all fear in our relationships. Risk of being hurt. Risk of being rejected. Risk of being told we aren't good enough. They are all pretty much the same thing.  When we don't spend time with one another, because we are hurt, we don't realize that we are allowing that monster to grow. The monster called: Fear and Insecurity. It is easier to hurt another than it is to risk hurt to ourselves, so we go about our days saying how we don't like so and so and how so and so does this and that...without ever stopping to examine whether or not we've invested in the relationship with so and so.

You see, without investing into the bank account of a relationship by Spending Time Together, the relationship can't weather the hard times. All relationships have hard times. We are human. We have good days. We have bad days. Sometimes, those days add up to weeks or months or years at at a time. If we have no deposits in our emotional bank account with those in our lives, when we have those bad times, our accounts become overdrawn and we become resentful, fearful, angry.  We decide we don't want to spend time making emotional deposits into THAT account because it hurts right now.

We don't often stop to think:

If I spent time with so and so and put those good deposits in, then we could withstand the bad.

Nope. We just keep moving forward, Getting Things Done rather than Spending Time Together because that is safe. That has a beginning, middle and end. It has a measurable result.

For just a moment, imagine a relationship in your life that needs some emotional deposits. In our world, it is Honey Bunny and Hubby. Oh man, for the past 4 years they have not been depositing goodness into one another's accounts, only approaching each other with distain and contempt. Only seeing the negative in one another and approaching all interactions from a stance of fear, rather than love. I'd finally had enough and asked them both to work on it, if not for themselves but for me. They both love me and this dynamic puts me in a bad spot. I have to chose my child over my husband or vise versa. Not healthy at all.

Want to know what they did? Rather defensive and brusk, they went off to play video games at Dave and Buster's last week. They went on a date. A Daddy/Daughter date. Want to know what happened? I didn't hear from either of them for 3 hours! No one was tattling on the other. No one was telling me what a jerk the other was. They shot things up. They ate. They...laughed! They made that emotional deposit into the other's emotional bank account. They Spent Time Together rather than getting things done.   They both came home so happy and joking with one another. Can you imagine if they do this weekly how big that emotional bank account is going to grow? How big that love and inner relationship will grow so when they do have butthead moments, the relationship will be able to weather that storm?  It gives me such hope.

It's why I chose to Spend Time Together rather than Get Things Done last night.

What are you going to release from getting done today to invest in a relationship that needs a deposit? Think about it. Let me know. I'd love to hear.




Comments