Last evening I wrote a list of my incomplete tasks and projects. I wrote down everything I could think of that was awaiting decision, action, completion or abandonment. Stunned by the length of the list I understood why I was feeling so drained, overwhelmed, somewhat unfocused and generally miserable!
Unresolved issues and incomplete projects clutter the mind and block our energy. I am sure you have felt the liberation of un-cluttering a space, whether a desk, a computer filing system, a room in the house or a closet. There is an ease, a lightness and a clarity that comes with a clean-out. The clarity and lightness, and the high energy and focus that follow a mental clean-up is far greater even than the feeling after a physical clean-up.
Unfinished projects can be things as trivial as unreturned voicemails or as serious as unfinished masechtot (Talmudic Tractates), incomplete construction or business projects, and relationships that are unresolved.
Some incompletion is due to not having made a decision. Some of it is due to not having acted on a decision that has been made, and some is not having completed tasks that have been started. We’ll look at each of those categories:
No Decision
In an indecisive state we can fool ourselves into believing that two or more doors are open and we are not yet decided which to walk through. We are deluded into feeling we have the freedom of multiple options. The truth is we are paralyzed. We have no freedom at all. None of the options are open doors until we actually choose one of them. Not making a choice is disempowering and paralyzing.
It is helpful to perceive indecisiveness not as a decision pending, but as a decision made. Indecisiveness is a decision not to act at all! Recognizing that indecisiveness is in itself a decision, and accepting that it is a decision not to act, enables us to close the issue or it forces us into a different decision: a decision to act. Either way we break the paralysis and move on.
Imagine a person agonizing over whether or not to go on Aliyah. He believes that until he makes his decision his options are open and thast holds him back from deciding. However, if he accepts that his ambivalence is a decision for the status quo, he might confront the fact that for now he has made his decision: he is not going on Aliyah. This will either propel him into making a different choice, or still the turbulence of his agonizing dilemma.
Decision, but no Action
How many times have you heard people say, "From tomorrow I plan to..." and then announce a decision to make a significant change in life or habit; like starting a diet, or a learning program or undertake some chore they have been delaying? We so often say "From tomorrow" because we are not fully resolved and the future never really arrives. There is always a tomorrow unless we are confronted with an externally imposed deadline of serious consequence. So when you hear, or say, "From tomorrow.." don’t take yourself or the other person seriously. You know that is simply another way of saying "I would like to....but I probably won’t".
"Al tomar keshe’eppaneh eshaneh", do not say, "when I turn the corner I will change, because you may never turn the corner." A decision not acted upon is not a decision at all. Decisions that are followed by immediate action gain the energy of momentum and have a chance of completion. When we complete the Sefer Torah onSimchat Torah, we do not undertake to start again the following Shabbat. We begin to read Bereishit immediately. We begin to build our Sucot on Motzei Yom Kippur, not the next day. When you have made a decision, seek an action that you can immediately begin and start the process of execution. Even a small action will give life to your decision, and energy to its fulfillment.
Action but no Completion
There is a special quality to completion. After completing even a short masechet of Gemarrah, we make a celebratory siyyum. We do not make a siyyum after learning three times the amount of a longermasechet that we have not yet completed. Siyyum means completion: we celebrate completion. When one person begins a mitzvah and another ends it, the one who ends it gets rewarded for the mitzvah even if he or she did much less than the person who started. A mitzvah is not a mitzvah until it is complete. An action is not an action until complete. Accomplishment is not a word that can be applied to something incomplete.
Focusing on the end point is vital. Setting aside the time needed to get to the endpoint helps. Taking on new tasks and projects before old ones are either deliberately abandoned or completed, (or at least have a plan for completion,) will only add to your frustration and anxiety. Use the joyous celebration of finishing the old to propel taking on the new.
Winning Needs Focus
The length of a person’s life is generally predetermined and we can do little to lengthen or shorten it other than acts of self-destruction or negligence. There are times though, when we put ourselves into situations that can shorten our allotted time on earth. One such case is going into war, even a Milchemet Mitzvah (a war that is a Mitzvah), without being able to focus fully on the battles at hand. (See Ibn EzraDevarim 20:5 and 7). Our Parsha gives three examples of uncompleted projects in the arenas of home, business and relationships: 1)One who has built a house and not yet occupied it; 2) one who has planted a vineyard and not yet eaten from it; and 3) one who has betrothed a woman and not yet married her.
In each of these cases the individual’s mind cannot be vacant for the focus, passion and energy of warfare. Their heads are occupied with incomplete projects that clutter their minds and drain their energy. They are urged to go back home and attend to their unfinished business before rejoining their brethren in battle. We too should address our unfinished projects and get them behind us as we clear our focus for the exciting challenges that lie ahead of us each day of our lives.
Looking at my sadly long list of incomplete tasks and projects I categorized them into those that needed decision, those that needed action and those that needed completion. I promised myself I would begin on them the next day....and then I caught myself..... I began to work on just one of them last night.
