things I don’t do

I’ve been thinking: social media is our highlight reel, which is fine if we all remind ourselves of that every time we’re scrolling. But very few of us are able to do that, instead getting sucked into the comparison trap.

I was talking to a friend about evening schedules for some reason. She does some things every night that I just don’t do. I can see the value in them, but I don’t do them because I do other things instead. That led to a conversation about things we don’t do. I love to read, and, seriously, it’s therapy for me, so I have to make time to be reading. But in order to carve out reading time, that means I don’t do other things.

I post pictures of us out in a the garden or me reading a book, and often friends tell me that they don’t have time for fill-in-the-blank. I try to gently remind them that there are plenty of things that they do that I just don’t do – and that is great. What works for you might not work for me, and what is important to you may not be as important to me. We would all be far better off if we could just acknowledge that we all have strengths, weaknesses, and priorities based on our own individual values versus assuming others’ choices have anything at all to do with me. You do you, I’ll do me.

Perhaps, in addition to our highlight reels in real and online life, we should talk more about stuff we don’t do. We all have priorities and make choices accordingly, but if we don’t talk about the trade-offs, we wind up only showing the world (and far more importantly, those closest to us) the good stuff, conveniently leaving out the stuff we traded off for along the way.

So I’m going to share some things I don’t do in the spirit of starting that conversation:

• I don’t do bedtime stories every night with the kids.
• I don’t have high cleanliness standards. Exhibit A: our daughter’s room.
• I don’t wake up when the alarm goes off (although I’ve been working on that one for approximately 34 years).
• I don’t spend time on maintaining our “landscaping” around our house.
• I don’t have a full-time (paid) job.
• I don’t shower unless I’m stinky or going somewhere where it’s required.
• I don’t talk on the phone much (thank God for Voxer).
• I don’t scrapbook (sidenote: ChatBooks helped relieve any guilt about not properly documenting my children’s childhoods).
• I don’t use single-use products if at all possible (you might think this is a time-suck, but it actually saves time and energy over time having to purchase all of that crap, not to mention the guilt load for me).
• I don’t keep my nails painted (I haven’t had a pedicure since Jasper was born nine years ago. I don’t have anything against them; they just aren’t my thing.)
• I don’t wear much makeup (again, just not usually my thing on a regular basis, but I think it’s great if it is YOUR thing).
• I don’t shave my legs much in colder weather.
• I don’t stay up late (just plain necessary for me function the next day).
• I don’t watch TV by myself.
• I deleted Facebook and Twitter from my phone and unfollowed pretty much everyone on Facebook (which makes Facebook far less addictive/attractive).
• We only do one kids’ activity per kid a season and take the summers off. Since they’re still young, this typically only means one night a week right now, although that will change as they get older.
• I don’t have a laundry schedule, and I regularly leave a load in the dryer for a week before I get back to it.
• I don’t do the dishes. Grant does.
• I don’t really do kids’ birthday parties. Or when we do, they’re like this.
• I don’t worry about weeds or spray our yard with chemicals (this is more of an ethical choice, but seriously, that stuff takes a lot of time and money).
• I don’t craft. I create in the garden and the kitchen. I think we should all create, but that sweet spot looks different for each of us.
• I don’t volunteer in the kids’ school much.
• I don’t volunteer much in general anymore outside of hospitality and church. I am still recovering from this feeling that I have to be “serving” outside of my house, so it is hard for me to write that previous sentence without adding a ton of rationalizations (listen to this conversation for more details).
• We are actively against “busy.” Ways this manifests: we try not to say that word in our house, we are really careful about what we let the kids and ourselves participate in outside of the house, and when we feel like our lives are getting too full, we talk about what needs to go to create more sanity and margin.
• I abhor shopping, so I don’t do much of it and, when I have to, the internet is my BFF.
• I don’t have to grocery shop much at all this time of the year because we’re eating out of the freezer and garden, but outside of the growing season, I mostly use MarketWagon.com and Costco for grocery shopping, so between those two, I don’t have to spend much time grocery shopping each week because I buy in bulk at Costco or via the internet for local stuff from MarketWagon.

Just making that list was really freeing. Maybe you could try making one of your own? Letting go of the stuff you say “no” to, in order to say more emphatic “yeses” to the things you love and value.