Why just be when you can do?

What does it mean when you wake up with "Back in the USSR" stuck in your head?

I'm back in Utah again, and happily so. There is much to be done over the next few weeks and I'm excited and hopefully motivated to get to it all. I'll spare you the laundry list. Suffice it to say sometimes I have a tendency to really over do it, and these next two weeks may just prove that point all too well.

Why do I feel this constant need to run a million places at once? Is it that I really am pulled that many ways? Or do I just walk right into it and get myself involved in too many things? I'm never really sure.

One thing I do know, today I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm not going to worry about money, commitments, or what I haven't accomplished yet. I'm just going to enjoy getting my house in order and taking care of the little furry beings in my house.

That reminds me... "beings."

A few years ago there was a person in my life who often counseled me to stop trying to be everything to everyone. I'm sure he had good intentions, but he clearly didn't understand me as a person. But I digress. He frequently gave me advice (or what he thought was advice) that we are human "be"-ings, not human "do-ings." If I recall correctly (and to be honest I've blocked out most of the crap he ever said to me) his point was that it was okay to just "be," and not to have to constantly be "doing." I'm sure if a wiser and sager person had said all of that with more back up advice and theory maybe it would have made sense.

Personally, I'd like to call a big BS on that one. My dogs and cats, they are just "beings." They don't have much purpose in life other than to just be (thanks to domestication, but we'll save my lecture on that for some other day). Humans maybe would be better labeled as "doings." (Ick, its just so lame. I hate saying it.) I'll even paraphrase some Mormon scripture to back me up here. "Adam fell that man might be, and man is that he might have joy," and "overcome the natural man." To me that is plain and simple that we can't just be. We have to work to have joy.We have to overcome and not just be.

So when I'm stretched thin and wondering why I'm always so busy, I always remember the idiot that told me I didn't have to do everything. That I could just be. Sorry dude, I disagree. I'd rather spend my life doing something and finding joy from it. And not just "being" and never experiencing the happiness that comes from doing.