I am about to turn [age] tomorrow. I sat down a few minutes ago to do some last minute reflection on my life so far, and instead opened up my RSS feed. I’m glad I did because I saw this article by Ben Callahan on Sparkbox’s blog, the Foundry.
From Ben’s post:
For some reason, we associate “making an impact” with doing instead of being. Sometimes the way to make an impact is to stop doing. Shut up and listen; learn something. It’s a little thing for most of us, but putting yourself in learning mode means you see others as teachers.
Ben Callahan on The Foundry
This article is one solid nugget of perspective about both life in general and the web industry. I highly recommend reading it. Like most (all?) content from Sparkbox, it’s of reasonable length, well-written, and Worth Your Time.
Okay, now for a personal response to Ben’s article. I mentioned in my 2019 goals post that I’ve been working with a life coach, so that is not a secret. The term “life coach” makes me uncomfortable, but I’ll just have to get over it.
In my last meetings with my life coach, my life coach and I determined that for me, year 29 was about doing and year 30 will be about being. Well, that makes this article extremely timely! And I don’t feel so bad about evading my reflection with RSS anymore. I will have to tell my life coach about it, since its very relevant to life coaching. Life coach.
Also, I wrote this post on my phone, on the couch (couch, not coach), in about 15 minutes! Publish, Lara, publish!!!
And now, it is the next morning. I wanted to follow up with some ideas for focusing on being instead of doing:
- Watch more TV shows
- Sleep in as late as I can, every day
- Order more food for delivery instead of cooking
- Stop seeking out new opportunities
- Say no to social events
Umm…something doesn’t sound right there.
A problem I foresee with choosing to be over do, is that I like doing and I don’t really understand being. I’ll have to follow up on that with my life coach.