To Should or Not to Should
It was our first week living in Florence. My daughter was attending the International School and they had an orientation meeting for the parents. The woman leading the meeting posed a multiple choice question, asking what attitude would be most helpful to adjusting to living in Italy. Possible answers included a) being open-minded b) being inquisitive c) having high expectations and d) having low expectations.
Not one of us chose the 'correct' answer.....low expectations!
In fact if I look at my success and accomplishments in life up to that point, I would say that it was due to having the opposite point of view. I lived and preached having big dreams, big ideas, big goals and big expectations. Wasn't that the source of what got me to live my dream in Florence?
Priscilla knew that she had 'tricked' us and that none of us would have chosen that answer (she'd been giving the orientation for 10 years). And so she explained:
"When you are in Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami or wherever we called 'home', you can get 5 errands done in 2 hours, go to the dry cleaners, post office, return a pair of shoes, pick up something at Whole Foods and get your nails done.
"In Italy, each of these tasks could take several hours and still not get done. You go to the post office, have to figure out which line to get in, finally have your number called and be told that you didn't use the right packing paper, so you go home and repack but by the time you get back, the post office is closed, and when you do return, you get a different person who says the other person was wrong and you need a different postage code."
So the 'secret' of living in Italy is to plan to get one thing done a day.....maybe for those 'A' types, plan 2 (one for the morning, one for the afternoon).
Now 15 years later, I'm thinking maybe this is a secret to life, especially as we get older.
I want to add a corollary to this and that is about relaxing our expectations on ourselves. One of my favorite quotes from a friend of mine in Santa Fe on his 50th birthday.
"Now that I'm 50 years old, I don't have time to rush."
In this time of the Coronavirus, besides dealing with the horror and fear of loss and uncertainty, the most common difficulty among those who are not able to work or follow their previous routines is the expectations we have on ourselves.
The first two weeks, I felt guilty everyday because I wasn't being productive enough. I should be writing another book, I should be cooking, I should listen to Ted talks, I should volunteer my consulting services, I should start painting, I should write a journal, I should do a cleanse, ad infinitum!
Finally my girlfriend said, "Nita! Stop shoulding all over yourself!"
And I remembered 'The Italian Secret"!
I started with planning one thing a day besides my current work commitments, a long beach walk while listening to a book on tape. And afterwards, I was inspired to do more.
My criteria for doing anything other than 'essentials', is whether I'm nurtured by the activity instead of whether I 'should'.
Besides my walk, some things that I am now doing:
1. Connecting with one person a day from my past or that I don't normally connect with.
2. Whenever possible, instead of texting or email, I'm calling.
3. Participating by Zoom those classes, activities which I used to attend in person. Even the Gospel Choir I'm in is now done via Zoom (hysterical seeing all these seniors figuring out the technology, but they're doing it!).
And my favorite time of the day, is reading via FaceTime to my grandchildren in Texas and Florida.
It's not the most productive time of my life. Often after a meeting or call where people are talking about how busy they are or how creative they've been, I catch myself slipping into the 'Compare Despair Syndrome', and I just have to shake the should's off me and say to myself, "Yes, I probably should, but I just don't have time to should today."
Not one of us chose the 'correct' answer.....low expectations!
In fact if I look at my success and accomplishments in life up to that point, I would say that it was due to having the opposite point of view. I lived and preached having big dreams, big ideas, big goals and big expectations. Wasn't that the source of what got me to live my dream in Florence?
Priscilla knew that she had 'tricked' us and that none of us would have chosen that answer (she'd been giving the orientation for 10 years). And so she explained:
"When you are in Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami or wherever we called 'home', you can get 5 errands done in 2 hours, go to the dry cleaners, post office, return a pair of shoes, pick up something at Whole Foods and get your nails done.
"In Italy, each of these tasks could take several hours and still not get done. You go to the post office, have to figure out which line to get in, finally have your number called and be told that you didn't use the right packing paper, so you go home and repack but by the time you get back, the post office is closed, and when you do return, you get a different person who says the other person was wrong and you need a different postage code."
So the 'secret' of living in Italy is to plan to get one thing done a day.....maybe for those 'A' types, plan 2 (one for the morning, one for the afternoon).
Now 15 years later, I'm thinking maybe this is a secret to life, especially as we get older.
I want to add a corollary to this and that is about relaxing our expectations on ourselves. One of my favorite quotes from a friend of mine in Santa Fe on his 50th birthday.
"Now that I'm 50 years old, I don't have time to rush."
In this time of the Coronavirus, besides dealing with the horror and fear of loss and uncertainty, the most common difficulty among those who are not able to work or follow their previous routines is the expectations we have on ourselves.
The first two weeks, I felt guilty everyday because I wasn't being productive enough. I should be writing another book, I should be cooking, I should listen to Ted talks, I should volunteer my consulting services, I should start painting, I should write a journal, I should do a cleanse, ad infinitum!
Finally my girlfriend said, "Nita! Stop shoulding all over yourself!"
And I remembered 'The Italian Secret"!
I started with planning one thing a day besides my current work commitments, a long beach walk while listening to a book on tape. And afterwards, I was inspired to do more.
My criteria for doing anything other than 'essentials', is whether I'm nurtured by the activity instead of whether I 'should'.
Besides my walk, some things that I am now doing:
1. Connecting with one person a day from my past or that I don't normally connect with.
2. Whenever possible, instead of texting or email, I'm calling.
3. Participating by Zoom those classes, activities which I used to attend in person. Even the Gospel Choir I'm in is now done via Zoom (hysterical seeing all these seniors figuring out the technology, but they're doing it!).
And my favorite time of the day, is reading via FaceTime to my grandchildren in Texas and Florida.
It's not the most productive time of my life. Often after a meeting or call where people are talking about how busy they are or how creative they've been, I catch myself slipping into the 'Compare Despair Syndrome', and I just have to shake the should's off me and say to myself, "Yes, I probably should, but I just don't have time to should today."
Comments
Post a Comment