The #1 Thing Holding You Back From Simple Living
This is a guest post from Becky Hastings from My Ink Dance.
In this quest for simple living, I find myself with a growing to-do list. Even the tasks to achieve simple stack up. I feel the weight more every day, and there’s one thing holding me back from the simple life I long for: me.
I didn’t think I was the problem. I’m the one seeking simplicity after all. It’s the kids, and the house, and work, and carpool, and school, an endless list of things screaming for my time. Surely, it couldn’t be me.
I was quick to put the blame on everything else, but when I stopped to ask a single question, things became very clear.
Looking over my sticky note of tasks for the day, I began asking the question why.
Why was I really looking up the perfect recipe on Pinterest for cookies for the teacher luncheon?
Why was I bringing my family to that party of that co-worker I sort-of know?
Why was I shopping for a new outfit for Easter Sunday?
Why did I have my kids in so many sports and activities?
The questions kept coming and the answers surprised me. When I thought about my why, the deep down, true answers weren’t pretty.
I wanted people to like me, to fit in, to look great. I wanted people to see the ME I wanted to be, instead of the ME I am. The desire to impress people and prove myself was the root of all the things that kept me so busy. When I am busy I feel like I matter, like I’m important.
We spend our days in a race of our own making, wearing busy like a badge of honor. We just don’t realize that the thing we’re really longing for is to feel like we are enough.
We strive and prove and run like mad, using busy as a status symbol to prove our worth.
But what if we stopped?
What if we stopped this life of hamster wheel running and striving, instead deciding to just be?
I know why I don’t: it’s scary.
When you stop trying to prove who you are by being busy, you’re left with you, and what if you’re just not good enough?
This is the question swirling like an undercurrent in my mind. But what if the question we forget is:
What if you are good enough?
What if you could let go and believe in who you were created to be? God never called you to a do-more life of striving and busyness. He calls you to trust in who He says you are.
You are enough.
You are loved.
You are worthy.
Just as you are.
It’s time to stop losing ourselves in an effort to please everyone else.
Yes, there are things that still need to be done. We can’t just ditch work and the house and the kids to live some lofty existence. But we can choose.
We can choose what we do and how we do it. We can choose to approach the things in our life believing that we are enough.
When we believe who God says we are, we are no longer left striving to prove ourselves. We are free to do the things we want to do and let go of the things that never really mattered.
Becky believes in embracing grace in the messy real of life. At My Ink Dance, she captures hard, uncomfortable, often unspoken feelings and brings light, honesty and God’s truth to them in a relatable way. Becky is a wife and mother of three in Connecticut writing imperfect and finding faith along the way. Her new book, Worthy: Believe Who God Says You Are, is available on Amazon.