E: Quality hotel

Every now and then there is time for self-examination. Reoccurring issues for me are time consumption and ways with social relations.

I lead a life of great efficiency jammed with various activities, responsibilities, interests and people. I enjoy being involved all over all the time. I never have time to be bored, and I get to experience a whole range of things. However, there are more than one backside to this kind of lifestyle – some of which I have encountered already. All of them are interlinked.

Time
a) Time shortage. If your schedule is too crammed up, you are extremely vulnerable for unexpected happenings, sickness, delays or other problems. One thing is filling your time. But what to do when you have activities worth more hours than a week actually contains?
b) Inflexibility. The more tied up you are, the less spontaneous you can be. Sometimes there are surprises and short-term options you have to turn down, other times there are crisis or issues. Chances of a break down may be unavoidable.
c) Lack of presence. A feature I have possessed is to lose a bit of touch with present, while there is always something to do or someone to meet in the future hour or two. In this way you are ripped for enjoying the moment and relaxing. It should be unnecessary having to break off from something way cool just because there are other (possibly less appealing) appointments lined up.
d) Lack of insight and right value. Linked to the previous point; with less time to relax and think, it can be harder to figure out how one is and why. Moreover one’s life should be valued for who one is, not what one does. This can be tough if there is action around the clock.
e) Bad consciousness. For all the things one has to turn down, leave or miss, negative feelings can arise.


Relations
f) Too many friends in circulation. There is only a limited number of people one can keep in touch with on a close basis. If one wishes to depend on and be depended on, sufficient time and depth are required. With a great number of contacts, the contact hours needed grow proportionally. Point a)-e) may apply.
g) People must live according to your premises. This is what made the alarm go off this time. I can beat myself up for trying over-pack bag of existence. But when I notice that friends struggle to cope with my time slot schedule, which has been a fact, I am reminded that no man is an island. The last thing I want is to produce bad from the relationships that are created and kept for good.
h) Sending/giving the wrong signals. Combined with point f ) is the message that the loaded life spreads. No matter what I say, feel or mean, what people hear is that I do not have time for them or anything else. This can reduce the willingness to make contact and thus weaken our friendship connection. What I found equally bad, maybe even worse, is if this means that people are not approaching me if they have problems they need to share or with which to get help and do NOT ask me because they think I will be occupied.

My ideas for solutions
1. Pray. This is not a joke, as I believe God is almighty and in control. Then there is time to act.
2. Apologize. Sorry to all you who know me and feel put down by my ways, even if there has never been my intention.
3. Say no. This is a lifelong lesson to learn, at least for people like me too willingly letting go of positive replies to requests. More is not necessarily better, sometimes worse.
4. Focus. I am only one person who cannot do everything. To accept this and commit to less may ease my everyday and make it more pleasant. I must stress that I enjoy life and what I am doing. Sometimes though, there are too many enjoyable things.
5. Quality hotel. Unlike the Facebook mania where the goal seems to be gathering as many “friends” as possible, I think the key is to possess a fairly reduced number of individuals more frequent, serious and comfortably. My best friend, Thor Oskar (who turns 25 tomorrow), used an analogy of the quantity and quality hotel to describe in what kind of “buildings” our lives can be in terms of friendship masses and importance. We both know “the quality inn” has more stars.

Hopefully I can practice what I preach on this one.