I used to pride myself on my efficiency. I didn’t waste a lot of motion. I even knew how to take a Navy shower and not waste any water or movement. Talk about efficient! I could load the truck to go to the dump on a Saturday morning and do every errand I needed to do that was either on the way to or from. I never had to make two trips anywhere.
And I was efficient at work as well. The organizations I managed were examples of great efficiency. If I had to prepare a budget for one entity I might as well prepare budgets for all the other organizations we sought funding from in a year. If I wrote a speech for the Rotary Club I knew just where else I might use that same material.
It is a good thing I retired June 30 of 2009. I had very little stamina over the summer ending with the installation of a pacemaker in September. I now, apparently, can work only in short bursts. Then I’m looking for a nap! Eight hours of hard work a day without stop has faded into a memory.
I’m up at 7 am, believe it or not. But I can’t get out of the house until 11 am or so after my morning routine of meditation, treadmill walking, other exercises, looking at my e-mail, reading a chapter or so of a book, drinking 3 cups of coffee, eating breakfast, taking a shower and various pills, perhaps even shaving. I then work on whatever the project is until perhaps 3 pm at the latest. Then it’s time to take a nap, then fix supper, watch some sports on TV, hit the sack by 8 pm. Toddler hours.
Believe me, however, when I suggest I am not going all out like a toddler when working on whatever the day’s project might be either. It’s a pace slightly faster than just plain puttering around.
In part that’s because the old mind wanders. Aimlessness is my best friend. I was sorting paperwork for filing the other day when I heard my tea kettle whistling. My first thought was who the hell was making tea in my kitchen! Of course, it was me before I wandered into the den and discovered the paperwork.
I went to the dump three times this week. It wasn’t that I didn’t remember going the first or second times. It was that I forgot items each time. And the horrifying aspect to it: I didn’t mind going back! What the hell. It’s not like I have any budgets to prepare. I think I’ll take a nap.
Liked your quote from Chesterton at the bottom of your Blog page ("If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly")-- and the picture of him there. (I fear I look, as I further age and wear down, more and more like Lord Chesterton.)
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