Letting go of your list

I’ve been a great believer in lists for most of my life. They help organise the mind, prioritise tasks and prevent important things from being forgotten in the mad rush of modern life. But lately I’ve been asking myself if perhaps the keeping of lists can go a little too far. 

Over the years I’ve developed the habit of writing a new daily list as I sip my morning coffee; it joins my home list, shopping list and personal list in a special notebook kept for the purpose, and it’s a very rare day that I do not consult with it. My grandmother is even worse: sometimes when she completes a task that wasn’t on her list, she adds it just so that she can have the satisfaction of crossing it off!

What is this satisfaction we feel when we accomplish a task? Well apparently when we complete something we set out to our bodies release dopamine. Dopamine is the body’s reward system: it feels great and it’s very addictive!

To make this addiction all the more compelling, we’ve been taught from a very young age that society respects people who ‘get things done’, even when the things they do are not necessarily beneficial to that society. Our need for social and familial approval adds to the dopamine craving, making our behaviour fixated and largely an unconscious reaction to stimulus.

List keeping becomes toxic when it becomes either an anchor or a shackle:

• When you feel that your list is keeping you from losing control you are using it as an anchor. It is your safety net. You are holding onto that list for dear life because you're afraid that if you let go things may become messy and chaotic.

• On the other hand your list may have become a heavy burden. You dread looking at it, knowing there are too many things on there that you either do not wish to do, feel too exhausted to do or simply do not have the time for. Your list is a chain around your neck; you are no longer free.

If either of these scenarios rings true, it may be time to look closely at your relationships to lists. Ask yourself a few pertinent questions:

• Are the things on your list actually the things you’d like to spend your time (life) doing?
• What exactly will doing these things achieve? Is it worth the time and energy invested?
• Do you experience guilt or shame when you fail to complete the tasks on your list?
• Do you project these negative emotions on to your loved ones in the form of resentment, irritability, blaming or demands?
• Do you feel a sense of panic when you get to work and realise you’ve left your list on the kitchen table?
• Do you feel you could spend a whole weekend without writing or referring to a list?
• Are your lists recycled – are there things on there that you wanted to complete a year ago but haven’t been able to? Is it time to let go of them, or face-up and make them happen?
• Do you ever miss an opportunity to act spontaneously, perhaps enjoying a moment of synchronicity, because you are too fixated on your list?
• Do you consult you list just so you can cross something off, even if you already know what your next task must be?
• Do you sometimes feel frustrated by circumstances when they interfere with the completion of tasks, even when the turn of events is a happy one, such as the arrival of guests?

Of course there are many good reasons to complete tasks: to serve others, to move towards our goals or simply because they're a part of the necessities of life. And of course a list is a valuable tool that can help us complete these tasks efficiently. But just as you wouldn’t use an axe to cut off your fingers and toes, you don’t need to use your list as a safety blanket or a shackle.

Letting go of your list can be an intensely liberating experience. Strangely enough the world doesn’t fall apart around you. Things continue to get done, your loved ones go to bed sweet smelling and well fed. In fact you may find yourself acting more spontaneously, noticing opportunities and using your intuition to guide you. By staying present and acting as the situation calls you to, rather than trying to force time and space into the format of your list, you allow life to open up in new and beautiful ways.

Letting go of being in charge

Until recently I held a job where a lot of the time I got to be the boss. I led teams of people in the garden and although we worked collaboratively I had a lot of control over the process because I was the one with the knowledge and experience. In the end, if there was a decision to be made I generally got the final say.

Just after I left this job I worked in a little guest house called Shanti Shanti on the Cambodian coast. Set on the beach with the waves lapping gently up to the little cane deck chairs, it's a place that should have been very peaceful. But actually it was often anything but! This is because the manager, an eccentric French gentleman, was very stressed indeed! And because he was so stressed his most common mode of communication was growling.

'Spoon, spoon, spoon!' he would shout at me in the kitchen, and then when I handed him a desert spoon: 'No! Spoon spoon!' The interpretation of this for those who are wondering is 'No I want a tea spoon.'

Once day the two of us, the only English speaking staff in this very small establishment, set out to mend a banner who's eyelets had been torn off. My initial idea, which I respectfully proposed, was to make new holes by cutting a small strip from the side, sewing a strong patch onto the corner and then reinforcing a new hole as one would a button hole. This way it would last for a good few years even in strong winds.

But my plan was not acceptable at all! 'Don't complicate things,' was the reply, and I was told to attach the banner to crooked bamboo poles with sticky tape. Of course this did not work! The result looked terrible unprofessional and would have lasted a week at the most, so we scrapped that idea after half an hour of mucking around. A series of new and increasingly wacky ideas ensued til I had spent the best part of my two hour shift on the project, but eventually the banner was up and looking fine.

This was a difficult lesson for me to learn. Of course I thought my plan was best but I had no say in the matter. Instead I had to bite my tongue and do what I was told. I'm sure many similar experiences lie ahead for me and each time I will need to swallow my pride and accept that I am not in charge.

But there is a blessing in all this. For the first time in a long time I was not the one responsible. I could relax and allow someone else to lead. This gave me the space to cultivate a calm and quiet spirit, and encourage the yin qualities of receptivity, gentleness and nurturing. Very soon my boss was confiding in me his fears and frustrations, and in this mode of openness I was able to listen and provide support.

Eventually we got along just fine, he and I. And I learned very quickly how to let go of being in charge!

Letting go of the need for success

There's a great line in a song I like by the band Modest Mouse; it goes 'Do you even believe there's a race to be won?' To me it's a very profound question because of all the many things our society tells us to believe the idea that we should strive to be 'successful' is one that is very rarely questioned.

Before we go on it's important to understand what success actually means to you because there's a lot of different definitions floating around out there. For some people success is about becoming better and better, it's about improving yourself, perfecting your skills. For others it's about using your talents to your greatest potential. For many it's about achieving what you set out to achieve. But the most common definition we find for success in our competitive world is that of beating others, winning, being the best.

All these definitions are to my mind problematic. Those definitions that emphasise self-improvement seem suspect to me because they imply that we are not good enough as we are, that we need to somehow prove our worth. And defining success as the achievement of a desired outcome suggests that we always know what is best for us in any given situation and denies the fact that sometimes the most undesired outcome turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to us. But it's the last definition that I find particularly fraught with complications, because if I'm going to be the best, have the most or win, then by implication there must be someone out there who is going to be the worst, have the least or lose. And this is not the kind of world that I would like to contribute to creating.

Being attached to success can lead us to push aggressively against ourselves, others or the harmonious natural flow of the universe. By doing this we separate ourselves from each other, become weak and exhausted and often miss out on wonderful opportunities because we are fixated on our goals and not receptive to other possibilities. Often if we really look at our need for success we find that what we really need is the approval or respect of others around us. This need for approval can really warp the choices we make in life and lead us down the wrong path.

So is there really a race to be won? I don't think so... In fact I think the idea of success is promoted in our society because at a fundamental level the socially unjust and ecologically destructive economic structures of our times require continual growth and to achieve this people must work long hours and buy many unnecessary products. Promoting 'success' is a wonderful way to co-opt people into both working hard and acquiring things. The intrinsic value of the work being done and the products being consumed is not questioned because the value of 'success' is so widely accepted and ingrained.

Letting go of the need to be successful means accepting that we are beautiful and worthwhile even without great accomplishments, material possessions and social status. It's about acknowledging that no matter how good we are at something, even if we are the best in the world, this will not necessarily bring us happiness. And it's about seeing that every human being has talents and qualities that make them an indispensable part of the Earth community.

Success is easier to let go of if you get in touch with your motivations for wanting to be successful in the first place. By becoming self aware, and by observing the thoughts you attach to the idea of success, both in meditation and through cultivating moment-by-moment mindfulness, you can begin to detach. In fact just noticing that you are attached is the first step! Now you can move towards a different idea of personal fulfillment, one that doesn't involve competing with yourself or others, or resisting the harmonious natural flow of the universe.