“Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness.”
My Dearest MacKynzie,
We all do it. We plop into bed at the end of a busy day, mentally and physically exhausted. All of the unfinished tasks on our to do list fill our brain.
So much to do and so little time. Team mom needed for baseball, sign me up. Volunteer needed at the kids school, got it. Extra serve time at church, check! After all if I don’t do it, who will? Errands and lunches and driving and bills and cleaning and hosting and feeding and driving and helping and laundry…then cleaning again. It makes my head spin just thinking about it.
A couple of nights ago I opened my bible to my favorite book, Proverbs. I love that it tells us exactly what to do. The Kacie version of Proverbs 23:4 says do not wear yourself out trying to get rich. Money can disappear in an instant and then all you have is exhaustion. It got me thinking about the way we live our lives. I fell into the trap, complied with what I thought was the social norm, filling my schedule and saying yes to almost everything. After all, staying busy means that I am am getting stuff done and going somewhere in life right?
Somehow our culture has turned busy into a symbol of importance and success. In the meantime, we are missing out on the wonderful things in life... the things that really matter. And for what? Money? To impress others? To make others happy? To feel important and accomplished?
We are so busy, but what are we actually accomplishing? When was the last time you noticed a beautiful sunset, sat in silence or read a book out of pleasure and not obligation?
A couple of months ago, I decided to no longer use the word busy in my vocabulary. It’s weird because I’ve noticed that people automatically throw it at me... ‘how have you been, busy?’ Why has it come to this? When did this become an acceptable, and almost expected, way of life? Busy is not peaceful or productive and it is not how God wants us to live our lives.
So if busy is not the answer than what should we strive for? The opposite of busy in the thesaurus is lazy and idle.. that doesn’t seem Godly either. How about this: peaceful, calm, collected, restful, still. It’s priceless to see the look on someone’s face when they ask you how you’ve been and you say ‘still’.
My favorite new word is ‘simple’. The past couple of months have been transformational by just incorporating that word into everything I do. Meals = simple, Home decor = simple, wardrobe = simple. It’s amazing how uncluttered my brain has become after uncluttering my schedule and my space. Sometimes I catch myself going back into that old cycle and have to take a breath and set some priorities. Saying yes to everything will no longer be a pattern in my life.
Let’s work together and support each other in this area of our lives. Let’s encourage each other to fill our days with more intentional, simple things that bring us peace. From now on don’t use busy as a fill word to push by the conversation. Busy is a bad word.
My love to you and my prayer for an amazing life! Live to inspire <3 to create!
The purpose of this letter is to inspire my daughter MacKynzie to live a prosperous, God loving, joyful, legacy building life. Who knows, it may help you too. Please ‘like’ if you found this letter useful and please ‘share’ if you want to help inspire others. You never know who is watching ;)