#31- What’s in Your Pot?

Noah Rondeau, the renowned Mayor of Cold Brook- population of 1- was a hermit known for his everlasting stews.  Those who visited him at anytime of the year were sure to be served a meal from his pot.  The only problem was you never knew what you were eating and how long it had been cooking!  Noah, you see, would simply cook whatever he could get his hands on, be it a rabbit, deer, bird or....well you get the idea.  Thus the creation of his Everlasting Stews.  Rule number one was he never started a fresh stew, he always added to the old one!  As eccentric as Noah was, he may have been onto something.  The question today is what’s in your pot?

Maybe in your quest to launch new projects and ideas, you’ve forgotten the long lost art of having a ‘work in progress’.  Some people have mastered this concept.  I know a guy who never finishes anything.  His whole life is one big ball of loose ends.  We’re not promoting that path.  Others on the other hand, never start anything, let alone finish it.  As author Dave Kraft says, “They are so afraid of making mistakes that they never make much of anything.”  Then there is a third type, someone who always has something in the pot.

Here’s a question to better help you understand this concept.  What do you do when you are bored?  If you have no work to fall back on, when you are bored, you’ll constantly attempt to be creative at a time when your creative energies are at their lowest!  We’re not talking about using work to muffle the emptiness or loneliness in your life.  We’re talking about working from your sense of fulfillment.  You realize life has meaning and you can contribute in a meaningful way.  Are you someone who works to live or someone who lives to work?

Author F.B Meyer was someone who did both.  He enjoyed his life’s work to the fullest, but it was not an escape from a life half lived, but a joy he embraced whenever time allowed.  Most of his books were written during brief intervals while waiting for trains, in a dentist’s office, during lunch, using snippets of time that would otherwise be wasted.  C.K Chesterton, a literary giant in his own right, possessed the same habit as well.  These men were masters of the Everlasting Stew.

So what’s in your pot?  Is there a meaningful project you can work on while you are waiting for fresh cascades of inspiration, or are you passing the time unproductively?  It’s your time, and you can do what you want with it.  But if your looking to pass the time in a productive manner maybe this is just the recipe you’ve been looking for.

With the advent of technology in the form of laptops (even smartphones) you can carry your work with you at all times.  Never before have we had such amazing tools at our fingertips at all times.  Imagine!  We can singlehandedly carry the libraries of the world in one hand!

For you, maybe it’s not a book or an entrepreneurial pursuit, maybe it’s redecorating the Dining Room or building a boat with your son or daughter.  Perhaps it’s your marriage or a relationship with someone you are trying to reach with the Gospel.    Use the otherwise wasted time in your schedules to follow these pursuits and you may be surprised.  

In the meantime, pass me some Everlasting Stew!