To Do: Everything

“I’ll put you in contact with the right department,” the woman assured me, smiling.

I thanked her. “That would be great,” I said.

It was 8:30 on a Tuesday morning. I was sitting in the university’s Calling and Career office, where I’d made an appointment to have my resume reviewed before submitting it with a job application. The friendly professional I met with gave me some good tips, suggested reorganising some points—and then she told me I should add some volunteer work.

I took the names she gave me, sent emails, and committed two hours a week of volunteer tutoring.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m loving it. But my resume is a three-page monster featuring everything from teaching piano to providing over-the-phone customer service, from feeding horses to publishing radio devotionals.

So how can I still need more?

I go from the moment I wake up (far too early) till the moment I crash into bed at night (always later than I mean to), and I never get through everything—yet I think it’s not enough. It’s more than some woman in an office saying, “Your resume looks skimpy.”

This is me, with guilt cramps in my stomach, worried I’m slacking. This is me, with anxiety headaches, thinking I should attend yet another event or participate in one more club.

And tonight, I realised: there will always be one more thing. One more job I could do—a job I’m perfectly suited for, a job I’d fall in love with, a job that would look good on my resume. Always one more hobby I want to pursue, always one more book I need to read or one more event I should attend.

I will never finish.

And that’s okay.

Success is not measured in to-do lists. Worth is not determined by overcommitment. Value is not the product of a resume.

We live this crazy life of paranoia and terror. We’re afraid to say no, afraid to fall behind, afraid we’ll miss out or skip an important step, and I say it’s time to stop.

Time to stop counting minutes we don’t have; time to stop outlining tasks we haven’t completed.

Because I am enough. You, right now, are enough. What we’re doing is enough.

We’re so busy listing the achievements we don’t have that we can’t see what we’re achieving right now, and I say we stop. Where we are is enough, if only we can slow down enough to see it.