Whether we liked it or not, our misplaced values were there because we allowed them to be.
No guns to head. No authoritarian regimes.
We knew we had one shot at this life. How we spent it and the environment we created for our kids were priorities.
But every shopping store want, turned-up nose at a meal, tantrum given at a refusal to turn 3 hours of YouTube into 4 was proof of us being overcome by a culture we didn't value.
It wasn't inability. It was inaction.
When you're too tired or busy to take effective action you default to the path of least resistance. And it was time to get off of that path and on to our own.
But culture takes time to develop. An overnight overhaul is a doomed option.
A new one is usually too weak to instantly wrestle down the dominance of the old.
What we needed was to find existing moments that could be carefully infused with intention and, thus, allow room for inner values to replace unwanted ones.
Problem was that busyness was one of the biggest culprits. It robbed mental energy, clarity of goals, action.
We were skeptical that there was time to be found, but we grabbed our lists and headed to the calendar.
It's surprising what you can find in your week when trying to sniff out moments of waste.
60-90 mins a day trying to figure out what to make for supper and then running to the grocery store for that one annoying but necessary item that the lack of pre-planning didn't put in the cupboard
45-50 mins a day of "just got home but don't want to start supper yet" so kids get an easy "yes" to their request to watch shows and we fill it with something falsely productive
30-45 mins a day of mindless social media scrolling while pressure grooves in the shape of a U slowly form on my backside.
30-60 minutes a day of weary TV watching before we crash for the night
1 half day per 7 where pizza ordering and couch inhabiting gave seeming rest to a full obligatory week
Giving attention to our time revealed we had some and if we thought through how to intentionally link these moments with our values we could start steering our ship towards the direction we wanted.
And so we got practical and started to experiment.
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