The Next Right Thing

In praise of there always being another thing to do

step by step

I pull the door shut behind me and begin to pace away from the door, trying not to lean too hard on my walker, trying to keep my back straight. One foot, then the other, a slow rhythm building like a heartbeat. Everything is always a little too bright for me out here now but I don’t mind that. It makes me dissolve slightly too and I’ve learnt that’s a good thing. There are the fluid, rough shapes of the neighbour’s wall, the gate, the beech hedge, one merging slowly into the other as I make my feet move — one, two — and there is me, and there is nothing much between us; there is nothing much of me.

Once my steps are done and counted, I make my way back and close the door behind me. My mind is very quiet, like an animal waiting to move. I look down at my list and strike a line through ‘walk’. There is another thing on the list right after it. There are many, many things on the list, ever-growing: the details of a human life of fragile health, a held-together household, a held-together living. There is always a next thing to do. You want me to sigh here, perhaps. You want me to say how life should be more than just a To Do list, but I’m not going to do that. I am writing to tell you that I have decided that life is just one, long To Do list. I am writing to tell you that I think this might be one of life’s greatest pleasures. 

My fatigue is heavy right now. My ailing nervous system is struggling. I can feel my heart is having to work extra hard to keep me upright. There is a dragging, heavy feeling in my chest pulling me down and down and I can’t go all that long before I have to do it, I have to lie down and close my eyes and let gravity sink and sink, through me and out again, the relief like new oxygen. I go through times in my life when I fight the truth of myself and times when I don’t. Right now, I’m not fighting. I look at my list and there are only two questions that matter:

what is the next right thing to try and do? 

and,

can I do it now, or do I need to rest first? 

When I relax and stop trying to control everything, when I stop wailing and complaining and resisting and fighting, the answers are usually very clear. Deep down, I know what the next good thing to do is, whether I like the answer or not, and, deeper down still, my body knows whether it’s time to ‘go’ or ‘stop’ or soon shows me, and yes, that is annoying, but it’s a hell of a reliable system. It is a system I can trust.

I love those moments when something seems to release inside of you, those moments when you realise you’ve been over-complicating something that was maybe never that complicated at all. As the years pass, I am learning that life gets a lot easier once you stop holding onto your identity with a tight fist. The plain truth underneath all my huffing and puffing and self-importance is that I have a body, this body, and a big, full, open heart, and no matter who I think I should be in this moment, there is simply a list of things to be done, and either I can decide to try and do something about that, or I can rest. I’m beginning to realise that there doesn’t need too much drama in either choice, or at least a lot less drama than I thought. I have a body, this body, and a sense of what I feel are good things to do and not-so-good things to do. I have values and a called-to knowing of what matters, to me, to the world, to my day and I can try to make sure the things on the list reflect that as much as I can. Some of the things on the list I’ll want to do, and some of them I really won’t, but I think, maybe, I can choose to do both without too much fuss — it’s just easier that way — and if it really is unbearable then maybe I can slowly change things until the list is more congruent with who I am and who I want to be until I don’t need to make it all such a big, big deal.

When I rest, I might as well rest well and fully. Isn’t it funny that I forget that? Whatever I do next, I can just do THAT thing and nothing else. I’ve been practising that – trying to just do the thing that I’m doing, and marvelling at how much more enjoyable that makes everything, even the boring, painful stuff. I get so much more tired and irritated when I never really commit. I’ve also learnt to notice when ‘rest’ isn’t really rest at all but avoidance, distraction, rumination, deciding in that moment that’s that when I will fight, I’ll fight for something — anything — better. I love Mel Robbins’ ‘5 Second Rule’ for this. I make myself a rocket ship: 5-4-3-2-1-and GO! and even if that is just putting my phone down and going to sleep, I know there is goodness in that choice too.

The pleasure comes from realising that the rest of my life can be as simple as this. As someone with a tendency to get overwhelmed by the future, by the baggage of my past, by the sheer enormity of living, there is deep, deep comfort in knowing that the only thing I’ll ever really have to face is this next thing right in front of me. I don’t know my prognosis. I don’t know how well I’ll be a year from now. I don’t know where I’ll be living in six months or how much money I’ll have. None of it matters, really. Whether or not the future turns out to be something I like or something I don’t, something I desire or something I fear, there will still always just be the same simple task: make a list, do the next right thing, or rest a while. Do the next thing purposely, deliberately, all-in, or decide to rest that way instead until it’s time to try again. 

Does it sound like drudgery? Unambitious? Depressing? God no — I don’t think I have ever felt more powerful. I can make the list playful. I can make the list brave if I want to —or I can not. I can instead just delight in the small, mundane gorgeousness of being alive at all, the good and the bad, and explore that all the way to its end, because every next thing on the list that I get to do means I am alive, and thank goodness for that. There is power in all of it and I get to choose. 

Thank god for the next thing. Thank god for the list, the ever-changing, growing, beautiful list, the endless choice, the endless dance. Whatever you think, it is a path to follow, maybe the only real path there is. It can be purpose and direction and peace in a world where it’s not always easy to find any of those things.

I’m going to do the next thing now. And after that, I’ll do something else. Slowly, slowly. Gently, gently. 

And you know what? I don’t think anything else in the world — ever — has left me more convinced that I’m going to be OK. 

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