Time: Feeding, Consuming and Eating Time Sandwiches, with a side of Adventure

How do you make time for this? How do you have time to make things, to write stories, to visit places even nearby, to learn music?

This is a conversation into something that comes up for a lot of people who want to live a life of adventure. It certainly does for us. There’s just never enough time.

And it makes me think of two different questions that at first seem contradictory, but on closer examination, fit pretty well together.

First check-in question: Am I consuming, or am I creating?

I catch myself with this all the time. I go to research something online, check a fact, look for story ideas, check for a client email. And thirty minutes and who knows how many blog posts later, I’m completely zoned out.

But I think that has to work with a question the fabulous Holly Lisle posed in one of her courses, which is the second check in question:

Are you feeding it, or is it feeding you?

I need to read. Really, flat out, I need to read fiction. If I don’t get time to curl up with a book on a regular basis, I can feel my stress rising and so can everyone else around me.

Reading feeds me. It’s worth spending the time on that.

Poking mindlessly through blog posts?  I’m probably feeding it. (no, I don’t know what “it” is – but while sometimes I may find interesting stuff out there, or something that makes me think, I’d bet 90% of that time my brain is on idle)

Watching Stewart or Colbert together, and talking about current events? That feeds us.

Watching almost anything else… we’re feeding it.

And sure, we need down time. Everyone I know runs too fast, too hard, has to-do lists that are frightening to look at.

But Sean and I have both noticed when we decide that we need an entire day to be slugs, just totally brain dead couch potatoes, by the end of the day we don’t really feel any more rested.

If we take that time to have an adventure, even if its just taking the time to play music, or get a little writing done, the creating recharges the batteries.

I need to remind myself as I move through the day to ask the questions. What feeds me? What am I feeding? Am I creating or consuming?  And are the answers what I want?

No, we don’t have children. Or parents who live with us, or anything along those lines. And every person and every situation is different. Instead we spend a fairly huge chunck of our week working with animal rescue. This is what works for us.

Commenting note:

Be kind. We all create our adventures in our own ways. I’d love to know what works for you.