Leave A Little Room

Stay a lit­tle hun­gry and your level of aware­ness will sharpen. Leave a few things incom­plete so that you may antic­i­pate their com­ple­tion. Do not check every­thing off the “things to do” list. Embrace imper­fec­tion. Let a few things go. Have an empty room in your house, an empty drawer, a spot in your closet that col­lects dust, and a few unfin­ished projects scat­tered here and there. Live in the midst of the processes of end­less com­ple­tion and incom­ple­tion. Clo­sure too eas­ily becomes a com­pul­sion. The ten­sion of “not yet” sharp­ens your perceptions.

By stay­ing a lit­tle hun­gry you live longer and feel bet­ter (espe­cially as you age). Fill­ing the trash can to find room in your rooms will help you real­ize what you really need and what merely gath­ers dust. Be con­tent with a few dishes in the sink and a ruf­fled rug here or there. Ignore these things to affirm that you are more impor­tant than the minor tasks around you. Per­fec­tion needs imperfection.

When peo­ple live within the incom­plete a lit­tle sense of yearn­ing stirs their souls. Once you cross all of the t’s and dot all of the i’s your body just might think your life is over and end your stay a lit­tle too soon. Jesus did not seem to do every­thing while he was here. It looked like his life was cut short. There is a mes­sage in that and a won­der­ful para­dox: the com­plete life in the eyes of God may look very incom­plete in the eyes of people.

All great writ­ers, com­posers, and artists had lim­i­ta­tions and flaws. Many of them died too soon. Some of them cried on their deathbeds about hav­ing wasted their lives. No one lives long enough, so some­thing else must be going on. Most of the uni­verse is empty. Nature has amaz­ing gaps. Leave space for tragedy, errors, and mys­tery. Angels need some room to work. The one guar­an­teed way to be unful­filled is to fill every moment with some action, thought or thing.

Do your­self a favor today. Don’t get it all done.