Have you ever tried looking at your life upside down? Take to-do lists, for instance. We’re used to looking at our daily lists for confirmation we’ve accomplished something. Eighteen checks is a good day. Only two? We bombed.

But what if we judged a successful day not by the tasks performed, but by the distractions? Didn’t finish your laundry today because you took a nap? Woo hoo! The dusting took 3 hours instead of one because you stopped to play scrabble with your kids? Way to go!

Just imagine if staying on a task, beginning to end, was a sign of failure? What if the Puritan work ethic were… wrong?

The other day I was tackling a mountain of filing that was growing like kudzu in my inbox. I had to leave for a writer’s tea in an hour. Time was limited. Then my sister called. It was important, she said. I looked at the pile, every inch of me yearning to make it disappear. Then I heard my sister’s voice and with a sigh abandoned it for a conversation on the front porch.

An hour later, driving to the tea, I thought about how I had released the project in favor of the conversation. At first I scolded myself. Then I remembered the words of Artur Schnabel as he discussed piano playing. “The notes I handle no better than many pianists,” he said. “But the pauses between the notes – ah, that is where the art resides!”

Exactly, I thought. It is the pauses between the notes – or in this case, meaningful meanderings in the middle of tasks – where what’s worthwhile lies. Sometimes we get caught up in our “human doing” side and lose track of our equally important “human being” side.

Pauses like the one with my sister shift me from thinking, task orientation to a feeling, people orientation. I call those “people pauses.” That’s where I’m paying the bills, totally focused, and my daughter Chloe will come and sit on my lap and ask where her pet goldfish went when it died. I want to finish the bills; I need to talk with her. So, I shift focus for 10 minutes. Nothing gets checked off my to do list immediately, but everything that is important happens. When I hold too tightly onto the expectation of completing my list in a certain way and certain time frame, it doesn’t open me to all the possibilities for a richer, more heart-centered life that come up along the way.

The other day an item in my planner was to brush the dog. As I slid the comb over his coat in the back yard, I noticed his gaze move towards the sky. I looked up, too, and saw two striking red birds swooping through the early morning sky before diving behind a scarlet-tipped bush. I was struck by the beauty. Had I intently stayed focused on finishing my task, I would have missed a moment of grace. A “beauty pause.”

Other times, our pauses are about going inward when we’ve been too “outward.” I can be in the middle of a project with others and find myself getting angrier and angrier about something. Then I remember the “breathing pause.” I’ll leave and take some deep, calming breaths. I gather myself in, like a bird drawing in disparate twigs for a nest, and feel myself coming together again. I go back out a different person. By stopping to be a human “just being,” I’m then able to be a better human while I’m doing.

“Gratitude pauses” also catch me sometimes. I may be in the shower sudsing when I notice the light shining through the steam and suddenly appreciate that we have money for electricity, for water and even cash to feed the dog who sleeps by the bathroom door.

So at the end of the day, what if we gave ourselves a pat on the back instead of a scolding when only two items are checked off? What if we look back at everything that wasn’t on the list to begin with, and yet happened nevertheless? The hugs. The moment admiring the first spring bloom. The sweet snatches of solitude where we paused, remembering why we’re here on earth.

That’s when we stop and add another line to our list. It reads “Life well lived.” Check.



PERMISSION TO REPRINT: This article may be reprinted provided it appears in its entirety with the following attribution: Carolyn Scarborough, Author and Life Coach. © Copyright 2006 Life Come True. Reprinted with permission from Carolyn Scarborough. Carolyn is a writer and life coach living in Austin, Texas. She teamed up recently with Valerie Thomson to form the Self-Care Coaching Club for women, launching this spring. To help you with your own “pauses,” pick up a complimentary month of “Daily Do-ables: Creative Stress Solutions for Busy People” at http://www.LifeComeTrue.