Lou, what made you wake up and realise that life doesn't need to be work, work, work. That fun and relaxation can play a part. Lately I've been thinking about different people's attitudes to their to-do list. Everyone has one whether they keep it as an actual written list or whether they just keep a list in their minds. And it seems to me that every item on that list can fall into one of three categories: have to do it, should do it, want to do it. Now everyone (sensible) gets on with the have tos and then they have a choice they could either tackle the shoulds or they could skip the shoulds and do the want tos. Mr Hap is definitely someone who feels the need to get all the shoulds out of the way before moving to the want tos. Myself I prefer the want tos. The shoulds can wait to another day. Usually if you do that then the shoulds either turn themselves into have tos or disappear - LOL!
Fran
I had long had the notion that, if I was having fun while putting off or forgetting something on the to-do list, that all Hell would break loose. It was like, if I had fun, and then something I should have done instead came to light, it would be ten times worse than forgetting something but not having fun in the meantime. And since I didn't know whether I had forgotten something, I was always afraid to have fun.
I kept up family time to some degree, but approached it as another "to-do"... I didn't allow myself to have fun, and threw a wet blanket over everyone else in the process. And as you can imagine, this mindset didn't exactly do wonders for our sex life.
I see a lot of that in your description of Mr. Hap. Can't keep up with everything, thinks that having fun and being happy will make his failures that much more glaring, and thus makes himself and everyone around him miserable.
a fine and enviable madness, this delusion that all questions have answers, and nothing is beyond the reach of a strong left arm.
