Every Minute Counts

April has started.  As of today only 16 days (I am taking Easter Sunday off) left to do tax returns.  Panic is setting in.  Will I get all the returns that clients are expecting to get finished.  I try to tell them they might get an extension but that is not what they want to hear.  They say things likeyou can do it. My return is easy.  I made it easy for you by recapping everything on this piece of paper.  I wonder should I be insulted when they say their return is easy.  Inside I want to say if it is so easy then why do you want me to do it. But instead I just say I will try my best to get it out.  Panic sets in.

During this time of year I hate interruptions.  Clients are calling me asking me where is my tax return.  I want to yell “Why didn’t you ask the receptionist.  She manages the returns after review.”  Or I say I have not gotten to it yet but I hope to start it in a couple of days. Inside I am thinking, well if you would stop calling my I could finish this return so as to get to your return faster.  I try not to let the feelings of irritation at the interruption come across but I know that I am failing miserably.  My family knows that I am grouchy at this time of year.  They know to make sure that any conversation is short because I start losing focus…I just have to get these returns done. I know this is not the correct way to be. I know that people are more important than doing tax returns.  But the panic is like a disease making me just want to complete as many tax returns as I can before the deadline.

This morning I wonder if God is trying to tell me something.  Here small inserts of what I found to read in my e-mail this morning.

Do every act of your life as though it is the last act of your life.

– Marcus Aurelius –

The feeling is: hurry, there are so many, there is so much to be done, and there’s more there, and there behind you, and over in that bush. Another feeling is also evoked: that there is suddenly so much to do, not enough time. I’ve got to get them picked and frozen, or cooked into jam, or laid out for eating later, or baked into something yummy or delivered to a neighbor. There’s a mild panic that comes with a task that evokes time pressure……“No, we don’t have to hurry. There is all the time we need. Just this act in just this moment is just the right thing. It will never be more worthwhile than right now, never more complete, never more meaningful than being present with what I am doing, in relationship with the blueberries, in remembrance and gratitude.”    Alanda Greene

Words to remember today — relationships, remembrance and gratitude.

 Nobody is too good for the lowest service. Those who worry about the loss of time entailed by such small, external acts of helpfulness are usually taking their own work too seriously. We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Those who worry about the loss of time are taking their own work too seriously. Okay, I am taking my work way too seriously.

Last night, Hubby and I went out to eat with my father-in-law and his companion.  My father-in-law is going to be 90 this summer and his companion 92 this fall.  As we were saying our good-byes, his companion said, “I sure wish you all came by more often. Every minute counts…”