Let Today's Tasks Be Today's Tasks--A Paragraph a Day

I have an interesting affliction, for lack of a better word.  I always think I should be doing more--accomplishing more, giving more, reading more, working more.  I should be a better teacher, a better husband, a better writer.  I don't know where this tendency has come from, but it's very real, and it's very annoying.  These days it's not nearly as strong as it has been for most of my life, and that's partly because I used Buddhist monks--and other people from other religions--as role models.  We've been born into cultures that seem to value achievement above all else, so we feel pressure to achieve.  But what about peace?  Could it be that being able to do nothing for an entire day--and enjoying the nothingness of it--is an extremely high form of achievement?  I think about monks who spend years doing little but studying and contemplating life, never thinking at all about achievements that will impress other people, and I start to relax.  Because I'm not a better man than those monks who have spent decades contemplating life and living.  They've lived their lives and then passed on, and no one remembers them except for a select few, and that's okay.  When my day to leave this planet comes, I want to be able to say that I learned the lesson of how to simply live and enjoy, without thinking about achievement at all.  Our lives are gifts to us, and there's nothing wrong with simply contemplating a gift and enjoying it.  And that's what I want to do with my life.