What if You Were Being Paid to Live…by the Hour?

Living Now:  the Power Hose Incident Revisited

What would it take to get you to relax…Now?  What if…this is as good as it gets?

Dateline:  Second story veranda in Texas.  I am in my underwear power-hosing the doggie run…to be sure you have the full picture …see “How to Ruin a Relationship, the Power Hose Incident.”

In my right hand is the power hose.  In my left is a broom.  I am alternating hose spraying and broom pushing water off the edge and I soap and rinse the outdoor carpet.  I am doing my best to hurry, to get the job over.  This isn’t fun.  My arms ache.  Water keeps oozing back toward the wall.  I’m a bit peeved at the whole concept of spending a piece of my life hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping…hosing and sweeping.

Which is when a dangerous thought occurred to me….a thought which will change your life…if you ‘get’ it.  It’s a biggie…a toughie…but we can try this together.  In several sections.

What occurred to me was this question:  “Would I be ‘doing’ the job of hosing and sweeping differently if I were being paid for the job?”

Which led to the thought:  “How would my experience of hosing and sweeping be different if I were being paid by the HOUR to do the job?”   That is, I had to out on the veranda hosing and sweeping for a preset number of hours.  How would my internal experience be different if I wasn’t trying so hard to ‘get finished’?

I slowed down.  I stopped pushing the broom as hard and fast.  I danced in long, sweeping movements.  I slipped into a few stanzas of Delta Dawn….I noticed the beyond the balcony.  Corny, I know.  But, that’s what happened.  “Del-ta-uh Dawn…What’s that flower you have on?…”

Which is when I asked myself, “How would my life experience be different… if when my lifetime was assigned to me, God had looked at me and said, “You do realize you have been given an hourly job…that there’s nothing you need to finish?”

“People round Brownsville says she’s crazy…”