Travel is a structured way to practice letting go of the need to micromanage the day-to-day. To exorcise that sense of never-quite-having-enough-time that has plagued my life for long enough.
There is nothing else I have to do other than wake up on time and get on the bus. The itinerary is fixed, timings and destinations are fixed. Locked and loaded. The situation was set up for me to just go with the flow and be open to new input. Brilliant!
I did minimal homework on the destinations. What the guides had to tell me was enough. I took pictures of course. With a simple small point-shot-shoot that was enough. A simple point-and-shoot was enough. I tweeted and blogged only when I could – it was enough to just experience things; I need not document anything.
The concept of enoughness was repeated throughout my days. I did not see everything – just enough tire me out for a day. I ate just enough – despite the great food. I slept enough.
Sometimes, enough is excellent!
At work, I don’t think I want this sense of mechanical routine where what I have to do is structured so strictly. That would bore me to tears within the first week.
But the idea of enoughness has value. I am reminded of a conversation I had with my friend Martin a few months ago – on the idea of over-preparing and over-servicing. We have become so practiced at what we do, and doing what we do properly, that even the most passing of questions or requests would automatically trigger us to perform a cascade of planning, thinking, problem solving and research work! Clearly this is doing more than enough.
I hope to practice more enoughness at work. This means doing right amount of work for the situation at hand. Hopefully this will alleviate that chronic sense of never having enough time…
