Sunday Blog 178 – 30th March 2025
I have a card with the saying No Makes Way for Yes on my noticeboard in the hope it will enchant me to say no more often. It’s been there so long it’s yellowing around the edges. In 2019 I wrote a blog with the same title – No Makes Way for Yes. It talks all about the pressures of running a non-profit agency and how hard it is to say no all the important issues. At the end of 2021, I solved this dilemma by quitting said job, and hitting the open road on 1 April 2022, almost exactly three years ago.
And yet, since then, my diary has slowly but steadily filled up. I’ve returned to work a day a week and sprinkled my diary with commitments and projects. The yellowing sign tells me what I know already – that I need to say no more often.
I reflected ruefully as I skid towards the end of March that awareness is the first step. But too often for me, it’s the only step for weeks, months, years at a time. This month I had the fullest calendar since 2022. Echoes of the old days stole over me as I stood for hour after hour at the computer, working on project deadlines. Like a labyrinth walk (of which I’m so fond), I’m treading yet again the old, old path of over-commitment. Only this time, I’m a rung or two out from the centre.
Because now, since both my parents have died at very grand old ages, I’m spurred on by the renewed appreciation of my own mortality. That I only have so long to get shit done, to taste all the experiences I want while still earth-side. Somehow I have to reconcile this paradox — that life is short and I need to do less.
Perhaps I can start by taking a nap.