Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Lent '09 - Day 6: Choosing not to think

Some of the people I've been getting to know most at work are the security guards and janitors. They're wanting to learn English and I'm wanting to learn Spanish, so we are a good match for each other.

Additional people are continuing to be hired down here, which means more technology purchases, which also means more boxes. There was a very large accumulation of boxes within boxes across from my office as a result of IT's latest hardware installment. When walking back to my desk, I saw one of the janitors starting in on the pile. As there were 100+ boxes to break down, I asked if she needed any help. "¡Sî!"

The whole box breaking endeavor took longer than I expected. While working, the thought crossed my mind: "is this the best use of my time?" I definitely don't by any means see myself above menial tasks like box breaking, but there were so many things for my team that need to get done where my more specialized skills are required. Why then was I taking time to do break boxes where anyone could fill in? Questions of priority also arose, like "is this the most important thing for me to be spending my time on?" Scripture crossed my mind too, like "Do to others as you would have them do to you" (Luke 6:31), but those thoughts had a hard time being heard amongst the productivity thoughts.

In my heart, I knew that asking to break the boxes was the right thing to do. My head thought of many reasons why not to do it. When I hit this internal conflict, I have to choose not to think so that I can have a heart override. Once the heart override has occurred, the mind can be engaged again to realize, "I have a lot of flexibility with work. I can just work longer to compensate for the lost time."

No comments: