Cutting away the net

My emotion of choice lately seems to be fear.

In particular, a fear of "not enough:" not enough time to do what needs doing, not enough skill to do it well, not enough clarity to know what comes first.

It's a paralyzing fear that, left unattended, feeds off of its own inaction.

A bit of freedom came yesterday when I imagined my situation as being trapped in a big fishing net.

Caught in the net were all of my incomplete "to do" items: the outstanding deliverables at work, the emails and phone calls I owe people, the cleaning that hasn't happened for weeks, quality time with my family, and so much more.

It was as if each time I'd thought to do something but didn't do it, it got caught in the net as an outstanding debt. Over many days the net got so full, and I was so tangled up in it, that I could barely move. There was no way to sort through the mess of prior plans and ideas.

The only thing I could do was cut the whole thing away and start fresh. Let everything go and simply ask what there is to do now.

Cutting away the net meant experiencing some regret and disappointment over things undone. It also meant letting go of my own self-image as someone who is always responsible, reliable and good.

But oh, the freedom on the other side of that! It was a magical reset. The ability to start over, to choose just one thing to do in this moment, shifted the entire course of my day.

I don't know if there's a way to prevent the tangled net experience from happening again.

Part of me would like to think that if only I were more disciplined -- if I were better focused and didn't procrastinate -- then I would only ever have a small, easy to manage net. But that doesn't seem very realistic.

In life there are infinitely more wonderful things to do than we will ever have time for. Not even the most efficient person on the planet could keep up with all of the possibilities. No matter how much we do, we will all die with things still left undone.

In other words, there will never be enough time.

Perhaps the best I can do is to simply remember that, and come to terms with it, more often. To practice cutting away the net, over and over, so I can start fresh and alive right now.