Neurotic Nation

I've got to pull some stuff together and really outline what this challenge is about (if you noticed, at this point all of my pages like "back story" and "the challenge" are still blank) but it's an overwhelming list for sure.  There's so much stuff you're supposed to be doing, if you listen to all the magazines and doctors, and frankly, your own body.  Here's what I know, just off the top of my head: (Remember, these are things you're supposed to do every day, along with go to your job, spend quality time with your family, cook, clean, and get all your chores and errands done.  Seriously, if you aren't neglecting your children, how can anyone do this unless they're a stay at home parent with kids in school, or single with enough cash?)

• Exercise regularly
• Get 8 hours of sleep at least
• Eat right: unprocessed, organic, healthy fats, lots of greens, not too much meat, dairy, or wheat
• Take your vitamins, especially omega-3s
• Drink 8 oz of water a day
• Meditate or do yoga
• Be grateful: pray or have a gratitude journal
• Do something outside in the fresh air
  

Not to mention if you're healing:

• Do your physical therapy exercises
• Stretch
• See your doctor regularly

Or have a child with some issues:

• Change your life over to gluten and dairy free, etc - seriously, this is hard.  HARD.
• Get them whatever professional support is required
• Be constantly working on ways to help them
• Manage your own feelings around it - powerlessness, anger, burn out, etc

Or want to have a life:

• See your friends, maybe even make some new ones
• Have a date once in a while
• Have people over for a get together
• Enjoy your hobby 
• Take a vacation
• As all moms have experienced , take an unhurried shower in peace

Not to mention social obligations (though we want to do them) :

• Remember friends and family birthdays with thoughtful notes or gifts
• Email or call your friends and family so they know you haven't fallen off the face of the earth
• Make those cupcakes for the bake sale or go to those board meetings or coach that little league team or whatever you've volunteered for

Curious to see if I covered all of them, I flipped through O magazine, and here's what I missed:

• Your finances, making sure you're in line for retirement, your kids college, getting out of debt
• Personal care:  plucking, shaving, dying, buffing, smoothing, conditioning, exfoliating, and styling
• Relationship care: the fire in your marriage, dealing with sticky or hurtful situations

The list could probably go on and on.  The point is, there's so much to do to have a great quality of life that the act of doing them all destroys your most basic quality of life - your sanity.  And sense of peace.  I've never met anyone who doesn't feel guilty about one of these, and most everyone I know makes excuses just to get through. 

The kicker is, a lot of these things we need to do to feel good in our lives.  And we aren't getting to them.  At least I haven't been.  I suspect part of the problem is that we address this list as if it were a to-do list.  Or a pipe dream.  Hopefully this year I discover some other way to do things, that works for me.