Hurry Up and Stop

September 13, 2025August 14, 2025 ~ boydwilsonpat ~ 2 Comments

I live in a rush-rush world. Everything feels like hurry up and do this or go there, but sometimes I have to make myself stop. While outside sources place demands on my life, I have to place demands on my own life as well for self-care, and nurturing relationships, and maintaining sanity. Because of my need for inner peace and wholeness I have to give up hurrying and simply stop the rush-rush life.

It is no wonder people call life a “rat race.” Like the rat running through a maze to get the cheese we have become accomplishment addicts. Some of us are chasing power and prestige while others are chasing prosperity and possessions. None of these pursuits are wrong until they become all consuming, so much so that our health and well-being is failing and our relationships are inconsequential. I saw some very shocking statistics the other day. It said only 2.7% of American adults have healthy lifestyles (Mayo Clinic Proceedings) meaning many of us struggle with chronic illnesses that could be prevented. Wow! Just 2.7%, the rest of us are too busy for self-care and healthy choices. (Check out the reports of the USDA, CDC, and the Bloomberg Healthiest Country Index.) Likewise, the number of divorces has increased annually (Modern Family Law, Purdue University) and our teens and young adults are dying by suicide at an alarming rate. (Jed Foundation, CDC, Yale School of Medicine). In other words, families are in crisis and people are self-destructing. Is this really the benefit of the Pursuit of Happiness? Are the “rat race” outcomes worth dying for?

Even if you don’t believe the statistics try taking a survey of your friends and family, your coworkers and neighbors, your classmates and associates. How many of them are dealing with chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and cardiopulmonary issues? How many of them have ulcers and migraines? How many of them have problems in their marriage or have been married more than two times? How many of them have “wayward” children, troubled teenagers or babies in daycare eight to eleven hours a day? What are the mental health issues among your inner circle? Don’t forget to count yourself in the survey. Chasing the dream without balance is costly in a variety of ways. The rats want to live long enough to enjoy the cheese, right? That’s why it’s past time to hurry up and stop.

I have been struggling with insomnia for about a month. Everyone keeps asking me what am I worried or anxious about. My doctor suggest upgrading my antidepressants. My nutritionist suggested giving up caffeine and chocolate. Other well meaning friends suggested chamomile, melatonin, warm milk, a cruise, and a spiritual retreat. All these helpful ideas required some soul searching on my part. Was I stressing or worrying over something consciously or unconsciously? Was I depressed beyond my usual levels and struggles with depression? Was this the source of my inability to sleep? Had I increased my intake of caffeine or chocolate over the past couple of months, if so was that related to anxiety? I finally came to the conclusion that it was none of those things. What I needed was time for myself and to myself. This is not a new concept for me, I just have to remind myself from time to time. I needed quality time away from all the outside sources that were plaguing me to do, to go, and to be on call and in action 24/7. I needed to stop trying to be all things to all people and become my own self-advocate to rest, relax, and recreate. I love the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition of recreate. It says, “to give new life or freshness, to refresh.” That’s exactly what I needed – to refresh my soul.

For those of you who follow me on social media you’ve seen my bird drawings. Drawing brings me inner joy and peace, mostly because I’m not thinking about anything else. I can’t multitask and draw. I can’t concentrate on anything except the shading, the lines, the colors, and bringing the bird to life. For me, self-care is not just getting a manicures or pedicures or a message. Don’t get me wrong, I love all of those but they are not enough. That’s just outside care like paint on a broke down car. Self-care starts on the inside. It is nurturing my mind with the sacred word or a good book, It’s using my creative skills to crochet a gift for a friend or family member. It’s spending time with my husband listening to a nice jazz combo. It’s going out to dinner with my mom and discovering new restaurants outside of our community. It’s sitting or walking on the bank of a river or lake feeling the elements on my skin and enjoying the Creator’s tapestry. It’s snapping pictures of wildlife and flowers. (View my gallery.) It’s bird watching, playing with children, spending time with my grand children and the people I love. It’s praying while I gaze into the morning sky or while listening to the night sounds. These things nurture my soul and fuel my ability to do the things I do in the marketplace and in the community. These things help me to work from a place of fullness rather than laboring from a place of emptiness. These things enrich my life so that my contentment and joy does not rest solely on what I am able to accomplish in a day or a week or a year. These things stabilize my health, my relationships, and my spiritual wellbeing. These things give me a refresh after the outside sources have tried to suck the life out of me. All I have to do is hurry up and stop the striving, and the multitasking, and the plethora of communication through technology, and the non-stop priorities of outside sources until I can achieve balance with my own priorities.

We have the ability to change our expectations of ourselves and at the same time change the expectation of others. So much of what we do is because we have allowed ourselves and others to think overworked, overstimulated,, and over committed is the norm. Just as we learned to believe these things about ourselves, we (and they) can learn to believe something different, They can learn that we are talented but our time for work is limited. They can learn that we have fortitude and tenacity but we also have personal priorities. They can learn that our start time also has a stop time when we minister the word “no” with firmness and care. They can even learn to hurry up and stop themselves.

Tell me what you think about all this? I’d love to hear from you.

PEACE AND RESTORATION

“We’re not just designed just to work all day and run a rat race. We’re designed to be in community, to volunteer, to vote, to raise our kids. And I think the more inputs and investments we can give in people to do those things, the better off we are as a community.” – Michael Tubbs

Just One Thing

August 2, 2025July 7, 2025 ~ boydwilsonpat ~ Leave a comment

I read this article the other day that said everyone is better off to focus on just one thing. The idea was to figure out what your main thing is and to make it your highest priority. At first, I thought the article was pretty good and offered a good idea especially as a writer. I could put all my focus on writing and make writing my highest priority. As the kids would say, “Not!” As I wrote down some of my writing goals, I realized there was so much more on my life’s agenda than just one thing. I can’t even identify myself as just one thing. Sure, I’m a writer, but I’m also a wife, a mom, a friend, a teacher, a motivational speaker, a grandmother, an in-law, a believer, a daughter, a historian, a student, and a pitch hitter for a number of causes such as Alzheimer’s Disease and care providers. This list is not in the order of priority, but each one is a priority.

“Just One Thing.” I continued to think about this all week. How could anyone prioritize just one thing? What would happen to all the other things? Would this kind of myopic focus make you great at the one thing or cause the one thing to be more excellent than the other things? How would you choose when everything is an important thing? Is there anyone in the world who focuses on just one thing? I’m not sure if I’m just being too literal (or dense) in my thinking or if the author was oversimplifying his thesis. Perhaps an interview is in order.

PBS had a wonderful series on the life and achievements of Walt Disney and his brother, Roy O. Disney. (Truly,, worth seeing, check it out on YouTube) Needless to say, Walt Disney was some type of genius when it came to creativity and seeing his dreams come to fruition. He would never give up on an idea that made his craft better or more excellent regardless of cost or lack of support. Most often it seems others could not comprehend his ideas and inventions. Many thought he was a little crazy and declared Walt’s ideas would never see the light of day, but he stuck with it. As they say, the rest is history. So, was Walt Disney one of those people who prioritized and focused on just one thing or was it just one thing at a time? Afterall, Disney’s feature movies did not evolve into Disney World around the globe in just a few years. As I follow his life, each success led to a new evolution of ideas and inventions. His dreams grew with each accomplishment along with the many people it took to make it all happen.

Walt Disney’s life work seemed to be just one thing, but history would argue as to whether it was his only thing. From the information that is available to us Walt Disney was a devoted father to his daughters, Sharon and Diane. He took them to school and spent the weekends with them. He also allowed them to come to the studios. I bet they got the first of all the Disney toys. (Just a guess on my part.) He was married for forty years to the same wife, Lillian, unusal for Hollywood then and now. He and his brother, Roy, worked closely together and appeared to have a close-knit relationship. Some would say if Roy had not found the financial backing, Walt’s dream would have died as just a set of good ideas. Walt also appeared to have countless friends and relationships with people in the industry and among his employees. No doubt it was a hard balancing act, but somehow, he was able to manage his passion for the one thing with his love for many things.

I guess if I had to choose “just one thing.” I’d choose to be a good person. I don’t want my passions to outweigh my convictions that everyone deserves respect even if I disagree with them. I don’t want my skill sets to become such a matter of pride that I overlook those who are still learning. I don’t want my goals and dreams to so engulf me that I’m no longer available to the people I love and who love me. I don’t want my focus to have the kind of blinders that make me not see others and not be willing to lend a helping hand. I don’t want my priorities to be only about me because I can’t accomplish anything without the support of others. My “just one thing” is to be a good person who lives out her faith in every arena. In the end, I think I’ll accomplish more than “Just One Thing.”

“You can design and create and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dreams a reality.” “A man should never neglect his family for business.” – Walt Disney

Peace with a broad focus on community,

Give Yourself a Break

September 2, 2022 ~ boydwilsonpat ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes pressure and stress come from outside of our being, but sometimes it come from within. We have our own standards and our own expectations to meet. In fact, we may be convinced that no one can do things the right way like we can. So, when and if failure comes, we are devastated. Devastation may lead to depression. Depression may lead to other health issues. We may feel it necessary to double our efforts rather than ask others for help. Sometimes we feel like we just can’t get a break. The question I have is: where should the break come from, within us or outside of ourselves?

Self-reflection has been critical to finding and loving my true self. For years, I spent so much of my time trying to please others – trying to make them proud of me, love me, recognize my skill set, or approve my methodology. This started in my childhood and continued on throughout a portion of my adult life. I actually used to repeat to myself this mantra: “Everyone else can do 100%, but you must do 200%.” I felt the burden of being the first in several areas of my life, as well as being a role model for those who would follow – the unknown others. My standards, my goals, and my drive had an audience mostly created by my imagination. I never would have believed it back then, but now I see it so clearly. I never gave myself a break, therefore I never truly enjoyed or celebrated my own achievements.

I can’t necessarily take all the credit for this type of thinking. The comments or criticisms of those we love and/or respect can be a catalyst. Perhaps a parent, or grandparent, or a coach, or a boss questioned our efforts when we had given our all. Perhaps an authoritative person compared us to other scholars, workers, or volunteers causing us to reevaluate or double our efforts. Competition may also be a source for such obsessions with accomplishment and determination to reach a certain status. When your work is good, but someone else gets the recognition for their work or receives accolades, you may receive this news as a challenge to be the best next time. Self-doubt and low self-esteem can have the same effects as narcissism. All three of these characteristics are self-centered preoccupations on what others think whether perceived or real.

Now you all know I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist, I’m just a writer trying to use my craft to keep positive conversations going through stories and poetry. So today, I’m sharing a wakeup call from my life. One day, I realized I was miserable when I should have been happy. I had accomplished many of my dreams. I had many successes under my belt academically and in my career. My family life was great. Religiously and spiritually, I was growing. I (we) had property and savings. I had traveled all over the U.S. and abroad. So why was I miserable? Who could I point the finger at or blame? Who put the target on my back that would never let me take a break. After some introspection during a personal retreat, the answer was clearly ME. Yes, me.

So many people in my family, even my husband, saw me as driven. They thought I was driven by my own desires and dreams. Each time I reinvented myself, they thought I had a plan and was going for it, but some of those times I was just quitting before potential failure could manifest. Sometimes I was competing with persons younger than myself, but of course they didn’t know that because the competition was in my head. Other times, I was hiding my weirdness, aka giftedness, because I hated when people saw them as an unfair advantage. (This usually had something to do with my ability to write or my discerning interaction with children.) I couldn’t, and I didn’t ever give myself a break or take the time to really celebrate my successes. While it was true that I was the first in many cases, no one was pushing me to be better than good. No one was creating the challenges in my mind but me. I invented my own “rat race.”

Over the years I have developed two favorite retreat locations: Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. and Hendersonville, TN right outside of Nashville. I try to spend two or three days in these places to reset my spirit and my goals a couple of times each year. (If I only have a day, then any place with water works i.e. the lake at the monastery or Stone Mountain Park, or West Lake in LaGrange. Rivers are great too like the Oconaluftee.) It’s important to take the time to get in touch with yourself. What are you feeling? What is going on with you? What are your short term and long-term goals? What brings you joy? What causes you stress or sadness? How are you balancing your time between work and family? What are your real priorities? What will you do about failures? How will you celebrate victories? Who do you want to share your life with? (By the way, these are journaling events.)

As I was watching Serena Williams on ESPN she said something that triggered this train of thought after winning her match. “For years I had a target on my back . . . but today I don’t have anything to prove, I don’t have anything to win, and I absolutely have nothing to lose. I’m just Serena, you know . . .” I took it to mean she could simply enjoy her last days playing tennis. She could play her game to her standard. Win or lose, she was doing what she set out to do. Needless to say, everybody has an opinion of what she should do, how she should do it, and whether retirement is the right move for her, but what matters most is her own opinion, her own decisions. That’s personal growth. Others may indeed try to place stress on your life, but you can give yourself a break. You can play the game of life your way.

There are many events that may require you to give yourself a break: a newborn baby, being a care provider for an elderly relative, a bad medical diagnosis, changing positions in your place of employment, airline travel canceled by weather or other things out of your control, broken appliances, auto accidents, a national pandemic, social distancing, menopause, arthritis, death of a loved one. I could go on, but you get my point. Any number of things can change or upset your plans, but none of it makes you less than. Give yourself a break. So, what if it takes two more hours, two more days or two more weeks to get a thing done. So, what if it didn’t turn out the way you planned at all. It may be time to reevaluate. It may be time to come up with a new plan. It may be time to say the magic words: “I need help.” It may be time to take a walk or go to the spa, but it’s not time to beat yourself up. You do have a choice. Like Serena, you can raise the bar or lower the bar according to your own standards.

There’s enough going on in our world to keep us on alert and in the battle, but we don’t have to give the outside things permission to take control of what’s inside of us. Rest, relax, enjoy leisure, surround yourself with people who fill your bucket when it’s empty. Take a vacation, or a stay-cation. Read a good book, play a board game with your children, enjoy a romantic evening with your spouse, but don’t miss life’s joys because you won’t give yourself a break. You are your own score keeper. Noone else can determine whether you have given your all. Allow yourself to retreat and reflect and be honest with yourself. (See my blog: Self-Care, a Non-Negotiable.) Are you enjoying your life or are you the one making your life miserable?

I hope this blog entry is relatable. I can tell you now, I am enjoying my life so much more than I use to. I’m smiling more, laughing more. and doing more of the things that bring me peace and joy. How about you? What’s your story? Feel free to share your thoughts with me.

Stay safe, stay free, stay engage in the joys of living!

**Giving myself a break.**
A **beach retreat.**

Planning to Keep Up Rather than Catch Up

January 25, 2020 ~ boydwilsonpat ~ Leave a comment

The game of catch up is a ridiculous game as far as I’m concerned. I mean, once and opportunity passes you by do you really every catch another opportunity just like that one? Or what about the overload of tasks on your to do list, do you ever really catch up on all those things so you can do what you truly want to do?

Okay, so you missed the baby shower, but you’ll catch up with your friend before the baby is born. You missed the girls’ night out again, but there will be time when you finish the reports on your desk, Your body’s saying rest, but you only have three more projects to write before that pending deadline. You really can’t plan to catch up without something else coming up, and sometimes that’s because you never say “No”. After all you are the go to person in the family, on the job, in the club, everywhere. Just ask Sue, she never turns anybody down! Does this sound all too familiar?

Perhaps we need to take a different approach to planning our lives. I’ve got two suggestions. The first one is to put everything in your planner (or smart phone). Include your social activities, your down time, and your special plans right alongside your business and “have-to” appointments. I put everything on the calendar so that when someone asks me to do something whether work or pleasure I can look to see if I already have something in that slot. I treat my social and pleasure activities like a appointment because they are. They are appointments with myself and the people and things that are important to me. In the same way that I won’t let things interfere with my business appointments, I don’t let things interfere with my life appointments.

My granddaughter is graduating from high school this year. We are very close and I’m going to miss her terribly when she goes off to college. So I’ve made the choice to spend time with her whenever possible – breakfast outings, shopping sprees, the ballet, special conferences and classes she needs transportation to – whatever allows us to have time together in the midst of our busy schedules. (She’s also a very active and overly committed person.) In order to make these things happen I’ve had to turn down seminars, get-to-togethers with friends, teaching opportunities, and even some writing time. True some of these opportunities won’t come around again until next year. Some may never come again, but I also know I won’t get these previous moments with my granddaughter again. Its a matter of planning and priority for me, and right now she is a priority.

There will be other conferences and seminars. My friends, if they really are friends will not disappear on me. I will always find time to write. (Like right now in the middle of my bed with a slice of cheesecake.) So I have no problem planning and prioritizing what I want to do. So my first suggestion is to put everything in your planning calendar that’s important to you. This will help you make the time and keep the time of your life events.

My second suggestion, you may have guessed by now, is to administer the word, “No!” To do list and busyness will never stop growing if you don’t know how to administer the word “no”. Seriously, why do we feel bad when the answer is no? We don’t have to make excuses to turn things down, we just have to set our priorities, check our calendars, and our conscience and answer accordingly. “No, I don’t have time for that!” “No, I’m really not interested in doing that! ” “I’m not available at that time, so the answer is no this time.” Now that didn’t hurt too much did it? You don’t have to be rude or harsh, just matter of fact. (I’m sure you’ve been on the receiving end of the word no from time to time. Were you understanding? Then others will understand your no’s too.)

Here’s the real questions: how much joy (bucket filling ) are we missing because we say yes to everything that comes along? How often are we complaining on the inside because we aren’t doing what we really want to do? Are we missing the important events in our lives, like our children growing up, or spending time with our elderly family members, or rejuvenating our bodies with some healthy down time (personal investments)? How often are we trying to play catch up with the people we love because our time has been stolen away by busyness?

That use to be me until I realized there’s no catching up! I always planned to spend more time with my dad, but now he’s gone. I really wanted to catch that Broadway play but I missed it. Graduations, strolls in the park, midnight swims, seeing the new baby, taking that vacation – I was too overly committed to ever catch up. Now I let my personal priorities take precedence over other people’s demands on my life!

How about you? What are you missing the things that mean so much to you? Perhaps it’s time to start planning to keep up rather than play catch up. It goes back to personal investments and filling your bucket (If you are new to these conversations, we covered these topics earlier, take a look back Jan 9th and 16th.) 2020 is a good time to start planning and prioritizing your life.

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