One Thing Leads to Another

So, if you read the blog entitled “Atmosphere” you will easily follow this one. If you didn’t read it, I encourage you to read it first, before you read this one.

After I finished washing the vents which cover the filter for the furnace, I had to vacuum the floor. Despite the fact that I had placed a large piece of plastic beneath the vent, to catch the dust and debris that would fallout from my cleaning, lo and behold, there was still some dirt, like an adventurous child, which had gotten away from me.

So now, I’m hauling out the vacuum cleaner and vacuuming up the mess that I’d made by cleaning the vents, as a result of changing the furnace filter, because the weather had changed and now it was cool outside and the temperature in the house had radically fallen. This initial activity had begun the layers of the onion to begin peeling, because now, I’m sweeping up the laundry room and straightening up shelves in there. STOP! You’ve got other work to do. This little adventure, which your husband normally does, has just gotten out of hand. Go sit down and finish writing, before you get distracted again. That’s an order!

For a moment, I could almost hear my mother’s voice barking out those orders, which brought to my attention today’s life lesson. “Unless you stay focused, you’re going to get sidetracked, Virginia. One thing will always lead to another, because all of life is connected. You must learn how to isolate projects and complete them; not get distracted by them and end up using up all of your time doing things that are not on your agenda to do.”

“Right mom”, I was tempted to say. One thing had led to another, and it had done it so subtly that I hadn’t even given it a second thought. There was a need, and therefore, I concentrated my efforts on fulfilling that need, instead of sticking to my writing schedule, which was by this time falling behind.

You know friend, that’s how sin or bad habits form. They are like a slow moving snail trying to cross a sidewalk; it moves so imperceptibly, until you hardly notice that it has moved at all, yet it is making steady progress. For example: you get up late for work; instead of eating your normally healthy breakfast, which is the most important meal of the day, you skip it, in an effort to make up the time.

You get to work and 30 minutes later you’re starving, so you grab a donut, which has been generously provided by another employee. When lunch time rolls around, you’re not hungry, because you woofed down, not one but three donuts, to fight off your hunger. By the time you reach home, the craving for food has returned. You eat, but don’t seem to be able to get your fill, so you overeat!

When you wake up the next morning, you’re groggy because your stomach has been working all night; nor are you hungry; so what do you do? You skip breakfast again and the activities of the day before repeat themselves liking a swinging pendulum.  This continues for a while and the next thing you know, you’ve picked up extra pounds, you’re grumpy, and your work production is lagging. I won’t draw this out anymore, but you get the point.

When one fails to focus on the real issues, it is easy to get sidetracked, fall behind in production and develop bad habits, among other things. So today’s life lesson is “stay focused”, because one thing will lead to another, before you even realize it. Have a good one!

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