Life Is An Endless To-Do List
Why we should accept it and embrace it
While growing up my relationship with work changed over time. At first, when still a kid, I considered school lessons and homework as my only work. Once I had done that, I could use the rest of my time to play or watch television. I was fortunate that my parents provided me with love and everything I needed to eat, sleep, and live my daily life without any worries.
Growing up as a teenager I could still count a lot on my parents, but, besides school and homework, I had to find time to do my sports training and to meet with friends. Nevertheless, maintaining friendships wasn’t that hard, as we met daily at school or during extracurricular activities.
With university, my to-do list slowly started growing. Moving out of my parent’s house I became fully in charge of my nutrition, my apartment and everything else needed to support my student life.
Meeting people was still easy though, as university was full of students eager to make new friendships and it was still possible to keep in touch with old friends. The flexibility of studying also made it easy to find some time to train regularly and get a decent amount of sleep.
Starting to work added then a new layer of to-dos. At university, my worries were limited to studying and passing exams. However, at work, I received more short-term tasks, making my to-do list become even longer. On top of that, I found out that making new friends at work isn’t so easy, and maintaining existing friendships becomes equally challenging.
Now, everyone is busy during the workweek, and even meeting for coffee requires long-term scheduling. Free time is less, work is more draining and within the week everything needed for basic health and hygiene, like cleaning, training, or cooking, is an extra effort.
Sleep becomes relevant, but we need to find the time for it at the expense of something else. On top of that, we are completely financially independent and thrown into the complex world of bureaucracy.
And these are only our own to-dos. What about the moment we decide to have kids, take care of some relative in need, or get a pet?
We have to accept that life is an endless to-do list
With growing up comes more independence and with more independence come more to-dos. We slowly start figuring out that to-dos are not only work-related but actually for every aspect of life. The free time we manage to get during our workweek can be either spent relaxing and doing nothing, or it can be used to push forward all the other meaningful aspects of our lives.
To maintain friends we have to regularly text or call them, meet for that coffee, or join that birthday party instead of having a relaxing movie night at home. To maintain a relationship, we must compromise with our partner, and when searching for a new one, we must actively meet new people. To stay healthy we need to find the energy to work out and to cook decent food. And the list goes on and on.
Regardless of how much we manage to accomplish, there will always be new tasks: relationships require constant care and so do our health and our possessions. While we have to work just to maintain what we already have, the moment we decide to grow and further improve our lives we need to take even more action.
Furthermore, unexpected events or mistakes can set us back significantly in various aspects of life, forcing us to start over again. For example, we may need to find a new partner after a break-up, we may need to reaffirm our capabilities when starting a new job, or we may need to heal from an injury.
But at the end of the day, what is our choice? If we don’t do it, nobody else will do it for us. On top of that, not acting will just make our to-do list longer. The ten pounds we wanted to lose may double to twenty, or instead of having to rebuild one friendship, we may end up working on three friendships that we neglected.
If we do, there will still be new to-dos every time, but they will get easier and easier to accomplish. Running five miles is easy with regular training, but it’s daunting without exercise. A good relationship requires small gestures to be maintained, a bad one needs more drastic actions to be saved.
We have to embrace that life is an endless to-do list
Accepting the reality of our endless to-do list is hard but necessary. If we even manage to embrace this truth, we will end up gaining an advantage over everyone else.
While trying to live a meaningful life in this absurd existence, we may conclude that we are solely in charge of giving meaning to our own lives. Whatever meaning we decide to give, we can only pursue it through action.
A life filled with deep connections requires us to selflessly care for others. A life of financial, professional, or athletic achievements requires us to work hard. A life of contemplation requires us to deal with our inner selves.
Doing things that lead us to our goals, even if challenging, becomes enjoyable once we start seeing the benefits.
Action gives meaning to our life and the to-dos are the small steps towards that meaning. So, instead of seeing this endless to-do list as a burden, we should embrace it, as it is our path toward a meaningful life.
I found myself overwhelmed at first by the endless tasks that life puts ahead of us. But once I took the necessary time to figure out what truly mattered to me, identified the necessary actions to get there, and started acting, I began embracing this endless to-do list.
Once we know what is important to us, we need to examine our daily tasks, identifying which ones are necessary and which ones are not. Then we have to get rid of those that we know won’t bring us anywhere, and start embracing those that are helpful for us.
A to-do feels like a burden as long as we have to do it, but when we do it because we want to, it becomes enjoyable, just as life should be.