It seems everyone has a back story to tell. Over the memorial day weekend I talked with two people who were recovering from lower back problems. One of them was really in bad shape last winter and is now recovering from a major operation to fuse vertebrae. She and I got to talking about how to best manage day to day activities. It was interesting listening to her describe how she manages things around the house and yard. But it was also clear that she still had a preoccupation with household duties like cleaning, gardening, trimming trees, etc. Even with her recent major, life altering surgery, she still is interested in maintaining the lifestyle she had previously.
It’s the mind that causes people to continually injure themselves. People get possessed with cleaning and making order out of chaos. From those pesky weeds poking through the flower garden to the boxes cluttering the garage, we just can’t seem to let things go and ignore them. We have to move, rearrange, update, scrub, clean until we cannot.
For many people it takes real power and real discipline to ignore the disorder in life. And many people just cannot ignore the calling. You’d think people who, like myself, have gone through extended episodes of incredible lower back pain would learn to behave. It’s just not that easy.
Are you one of those people who has to make order out of everything? Or are you capable of just walking by?
