On Making Friends With Failure To Achieve

Do you ever have days when you positively absolutely do not get a single thing done? I do, all the time. Well, I achieve such things as getting up. Today I walked into town and performed one, no, two errands, then I came home and did two loads of laundry. I sat in the sun and read a book. I drank tea. I sat in the sun. I remembered that I have to snatch Rosy's latest magazine to read before she cuts it up and sticks bits of it in her art journal (she always sticks in pictures from the other side of the interesting article I am trying to read). So I sat in the sun and read Rosy's magazine. I have literally a thousand useful activities I could be doing, or you know, achieving something or attempting to make a living. I am writing a novel which at current productivity levels will be finished in ten years. I have two lines of thought which follow me through days like today:

My first thought is, "This is so lovely, ooh, look at the sun on the chestnut leaves. Sun on my back, mmm, may just close my eyes now." Then my second thought creeps sneakily in, "You are wasting your life, you are achieving nothing, you are failing again at being a useful human being." Today, as thought No 2 crept in, I happened to be reading this passage:

I go to the park and watch the ducks in the pond as they fluff their feathers. I see how relaxed they look - when all they're doing is fluffing their feathers. They aren't filled with tension trying to become something else. They aren't frantically attempting to build their careers, and they aren't sucking up to the other ducks. All they seem to be doing is enjoying the water, fluffing their feathers, and living their lives. When it comes down to it, isn't that all we really need in our lives, too?
Fumio Sasaki, goodbye, things: on minimalist living, Part 4, I enjoy life more

So, today, I will be like the duck.