On why you can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything

I’ve resumed getting up at 5 o’clock every morning, which is both awful and wonderful. Awful because it is just stinkin’ early. Wonderful because the house is so peaceful and quiet, with everyone else still asleep, and I can just be for a little while. What do I do at 5 a.m.? I journal (see Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for more on what she calls morning pages). I read and study Scripture. I blog here.

The thing is, if I don’t get up early, those things don’t happen. And they are things that matter to me, things that fill me up and refresh me. So getting up early has become a must.

A few weeks ago, my sister-in-law told me about some home cooks who have their own YouTube channels. Basically, each one has a self-made cooking show.

“You should do that,” she said. “You’d do a better job than any of them!”

In about 10 seconds, the whole scenario and what that would entail flashed through my brain. Keeping a camera set up on the kitchen counter. Editing video. Loading it online. Sharing it on social media. And how much it would delay dinner for my hungry family every night, because it would slow me down in the kitchen.

I could do it. But do I want to? Is it something I’d enjoy more than reading, writing, or even knitting? Do I have any scrap of desire to be followed on YouTube as I cook?

Nope.

So yes, I could do it. I might even do it well. But should we do everything we could do well?

That discussion prompted me to do some list-making. I sat down and wrote out all the stuff I have to do in a day. Work (8 hours). Exercise (1 hour, usually during my lunch break). Cook dinner (1-2 hours with cleanup). Spend time with L (as much as I can cram in between dinner and bedtime). Housework and laundry (at least an hour a day). Sleep (8 hours). I’m sure your list would look similar.

And then, there’s the stuff I want to do. Basically, the only time available to do it is in the dark of early morning. Because when the have-tos are done, there’s not much room for the want-tos.

Do I want to sacrifice any of my morning activities for a YouTube cooking channel?

No way.

But it’s not always so easy to say no to things. And sometimes, we are really called to add more to our days, even when we feel like there’s no room for more. I just try more often, now that I’m older and wiser (ha!), to discern what is really worth my precious time. What I’m really called to do.

I feel called to this blog, for example. While it’s not a full-on cooking blog anymore, I still love to share recipes here, because cooking is part of who I am. I love feeding my family and friends delicious things, and I like to encourage others that they can do the same. Gathering around the table is a holy thing.

You may have noticed, though, that the recipes sort of play second fiddle now. They take a back seat to what’s on my mind and heart, to what God has me working out in my day-to-day. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s good.

For a long time, all my recipes included step-by-step photographs, which were a lot of work. And after a while, those photos felt like pressure. Like a burden. They were time-consuming and slowed me down in the kitchen. They delayed the real purpose of my culinary explorations, which is feeding my family, much like a YouTube channel undoubtedly would. So I stopped taking them. I still photograph the final product, but that’s it. And you know what? I’m enjoying cooking and posting recipes more now.

You know what else? No one has complained about the missing step-by-step photographs.

We don’t have to leap at every suggestion, every possibility, every opportunity. In fact, it’s often better to be slow, to weigh things out, to examine what our hearts are really crying out for. God wants us to be filled with the things He has for us to do, not to “chase after the wind,” as Solomon so wisely wrote.

What are you chasing after in your life right now?