macular degeneration, macular, diagnosis Putzing Around – My Macular Degeneration Journey/Journal

Putzing Around

The totally unforeseen, seldom happens occurrence happened today. I ran out of work. Weird. Something like that hardly ever happens. I NEVER get caught up but today I did. Incredible.

I did the school work I had to do. Nobody had anything else for me so I did the outside work I had in my bag (shhh, don’t tell!) and when I got that done, I just sort of sat there, dazed and amazed.

Nothing demanded my attention. There were no deadlines staring me in the face. It was a little scary.

Now, I know people who can putz around all day but one of them is not me. Putz? For those of you for whom American English is not a first language (or for whom British or Canadian or Aussie English is not a first language either, for that matter), I am back to sprinkling my speech with Yiddish again. Never realized how often I did that until I started thinking about ESL readers.

Anyway, putz as a verb means “to engage in nonproductive or inconsequential activity”. It also means something as a noun but we don’t need to go there.

To repeat, I know people who can putz around all day but one of them I am not. I am more your type A type. Goal-oriented to the core. Therefore when I don’t have an assignment, and realize a time will come when I won’t have any more assignments, I get a little scared.

The Huffington Post had an article on being mindful. The title was Why Doing Nothing is the Key to Happiness. I found it while I was having my existential crisis and had nothing to do. ( When all else fails, write a page! ?) The author suggested being might just be enough. Noticing may just be enough. We just have to be mindful of what is in front of us.

Then he said noticing requires a stillness of the mind. Aha! A goal! I can work on being still. But the problem with that is you cannot ‘catch’ stillness by running after it.

Probably need to work some more on the mindfulness thing. I tend to try too hard.

Thoreau is quoted in The Art of Doing Nothing. The concept he was espousing was not to let ourselves constantly be slaves to routines, shoulds and musts but to let our ‘instincts’ guide us. Thoreau would set out with no particular destination in mind and just see where the road led.

That might be a thought. No specific goal other than discovery. No timeline. No schedule. Exploration.

Of course, every time my husband has tried that on vacation I have gone insane with frustration. There were things I wanted to see!

All of which makes me think I am going to have a very ‘interesting’ time of it when the eyes force me to retire. Anybody know of a good how to book on putzing around? I think I am going to need it.

April 4th, 2017

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