Week 9: Time

Deliberate Time

Annie Dillard writes “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” While I think she makes an amazing point and pushes me to think about the weight and sacredness of each day, the thought can also be overwhelming in the midst of daily tasks. There is not a day that goes by when I don’t do the dishes, or scrub a toilet, or spend too much time deciding if I should buy the organic can of beans for 25 cents extra. Is this a life I want to claim? To spend a day cleaning house and shopping is necessary, but to spend a life this way?

And yet Tich Nhat Han invites us to dissolve the boundaries between the “sacred and the profane” and approach each activity—even washing the dishes—as though it were the thing we would like to be doing most. He writes “To my mind, the idea that doing the dishes is unpleasant can occur only when you are not doing them. Once you are standing in front of the sink with your sleeves rolled up and your hands in warm water, it really is not so bad. I enjoy taking my time with each dish, being fully aware of the dish, the water, and each movement of my hands…Washing the dishes is at the same time a means and an end that is, not only do we do the dishes in order to have clean dishes, we also do the dishes just to do the dishes, to live fully in each moment while washing them.”

I would like to think it is possible then to live a life of meaning even on the days when nothing gets done except the dishes. Because yes it is true that a life spent doing dishes is not necessarily one to look back on with satisfaction—but either is a life of teaching, or building, or even helping those in crisis or need if you do these things with your mind elsewhere. “Helping” someone while your intellect and heart are not fully engaged on the task can do more damage than help. So a life spent in careless service is not a life spent in service at all—it is just a life spent carelessly. But a life spent doing the dishes slowly and with care is a life that acknowledges that life and time are precious—that your life and your time are important. And if you can find meaning in the act of shining a fork then no task will be beneath or above you.