Wanting To

I've been thinking a lot about how to be more positive about life. Much of life is spent in tasks - some amount of time spent in various mental and physical ways that lead to an expected outcome. Cooking dinner, mowing the yard, going to the farmers market, vacuuming the floor, going to a yoga class, writing a blog post ... it goes on and on.

I've observed that sometimes I feel that I "want" to do the task, but often the feeling is that I "need" or "have" to do it. This is especially true at work.

When I want to do something, I have positive energy and apply myself eagerly to the job. But when my starting point is a feeling of need or obligation, I am starting off with negative energy. Sometimes there is even a feeling that what I'm doing is a waste of my time. That isn't an acceptable state - life is too short to waste time.

When I find myself feeling that I need to or have to do something, I'm not going to start the task from that negative energy state. Instead, I will explore it - what is it really about? Why is it important to do? Why do I feel the way I do? - to understand if and why I want to do it. Then I can commence from the space of positive energy and feel good about investing my time.