How Are You Making Out With That To-Do List, Baby-Boomer?
“By the time you’ve worked long enough, hard enough, real life begins to reveal itself as something other than effort, other than accomplishment.”
Patricia Hampl, Baby-Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List
The essay by Patricia Hampl, Baby-Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List, appeared in the Review section of the New York Times. Being born at the tail end of the age of the “Baby-Boomer,” I wanted to read it. I agree with the above quote from the essay. Effort implies pushing against the flow and the sense of accomplishment is always temporary. No sooner have you met your goal then you are looking for what is next to add to the list. Eventually, after we have finished with the list, we find ourselves asking ‘what’s next’ in life. For most, at that point, it is late to start another career. It is late to start a new family. It may be late to go back to school. You must begin looking at things differently.
“The to-do list that runs most lives through middle age turns out, in this latter stage of existence, to have only one task: to waste life in order to find it.”
Patricia Hampl, Baby-Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List
I found the above statement powerful. It isn’t that the to-do list is bad, but our approach to it is not balanced. We don’t question it. We won’t examine it. We pursue it out of fear that if we don’t we will miss out on life. The list has a purpose and it is not the one we suspect. You go on this to-do list journey to find that the destination is you, not the items on the list. You are returned to the point of entry. You can’t escape examining your life by fulfilling the to-do list. The to-do list needs to be in alignment with who you are. You are not supposed align yourself to it. It can be okay to “not do.” Why wait till you are at the end of your list to explore that possibility?
The author asks:
“But how about just giving up? What about wasting time? Giving up or perhaps giving over.”
Patricia Hampl, Baby-Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List
Read the essay: Baby Boomers Reach the End of Their To-Do List