Don’t let Your Mind go on a Field Trip

Don’t let your mind go on a field trip to places you don’t wish to be.  Who doesn’t love a good field trip?  Remember when we were kids and the school would take you on trips away from your little town.  We would get to go places we’d never been before and see things that we had only heard or read.  I think everyone’s favorite trip was to the zoo.  All those animals we had seen pictures of in our story books would now become a reality.  We were always so excited to experience something outside our small world.  As adults we still tend to take field trips.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  I remember when I first moved to South Carolina I made a list of all the places and things that I wanted to see.  Some I had read about and some I had never heard of.  The problem is when we take our mind on field trips.

As we see things on television, on Facebook, or LinkedIn, and as we hear other stories of success, it is easy to get caught up in trying to do more and be more.  There are weeks when I find it hard to stay in my lane.  I start creating all these mental pictures of things I should or could be doing to better share my gifts and talents.  Then as time rolls around for me to start implementing these things, I get reminded of where my strengths and abilities lie.  I find myself forgetting things that are extremely important in the fight to add more things to my ‘to do’ list.  So I am reminded once again, to stay in my lane.  We all desire to add new ventures to our life and skills to our credentials.  And that’s not a bad thing, as long as we are able to pull ourselves back before we go off the deep end.  This week I was trying to add a new endeavor to my calendar and realized that the mere thought of announcing the idea was stressing me out.  So, after much contemplation I took it off my plate.  What a relief!  And then to my dismay, I received an email indicating that I had overlooked something that has been on my TO DO list for over eighteen years; my monthly article for the newspaper in my home town.  I allowed my mind to go on a field trip.