My tiny city in Maine has a very different culture from Atlanta, where I spent most of my adulthood.

One major difference is the sound of fall. Here, it's quiet. Why? Because no one owns a leaf blower.

People do some raking, I guess. But mostly, they leave the leaves alone. Soon enough, they'll be under snow. And nobody seems to expect their landscaping to look like a golf course.

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With a couple of major projects wrapped up, others delegated, and others dropped, I have found myself in a slow season.

First, I took a vacation. When I went to set the autoresponder on my email, I learned that I hadn’t done so since the summer of 2018. Yikes! Even if I didn’t go anywhere, this complete holiday from my laptop was necessary.

I further decided that, upon my return from my vacation, I would strip away everything from my to-do list that wasn’t essential.

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Lately, everyone I talk to feels like they should be doing more.

There’s a sense of guilt over who we could be vs. who we are.

But all we really are obligated to do is stay alive. We’ve got to eat and sleep and bathe.

Then we have responsibilities to the people depending on us: our pets and minor children. And we need to hold up our end of the bargain in our committed relationships.

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This week, a giant container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal.

A bunch of tugboats and bulldozers have attempted to create some kind of motion for the ship, but the scale at which they are working is comically small compared to the giant cargo vessel.

I can relate. That’s how I’ve felt lately not only trying to make a change happen and influence others, but also in trying to change myself. How can I begin to overcome entrenched habits and beliefs? How can I change course without getting stuck? It feels like it will take forever, and experiments feel risky.

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Funny how the impulse to tidy takes hold when there’s something even less appealing to take care of.

That less-appealing thing might be our most important work, but we don’t feel worthy of it. We’ve locked it away in a fortress like the princess in Super Mario 3, buried beneath many layers of to-dos. We have to clean off the desk, water the plants, put the kids through college.

What I’ve learned in my moments of inspired action is that it’s possible to bypass my rules and preconceptions about getting things done and dig right in on the most important project. The only big scary monster guarding the castle is the one created by my own mind.

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