Defraging in a Fragmented World

Once again, mind mapping "centering" the other day brought up another rich word: defragmenting.

Fragmentation makes me think of a computer process whereby packets of information are randomly stored on the hard drive. It isn't intentional. Nobody actually programmed the computer to scatter information all over the hard drive. It just sort of happened. And, from my limited knowledge, it isn't really harmful either. Rather, it causes the system to be inefficient, which, in turn, causes a little more wear and tear on the system. But, with the new generation/life span, price, and disk sizes any more, the abuse the machine takes is a non-issue. But, its still inefficient.

Defragmenting is supposed to fix this. It takes little bits of information, and tucks them in between larger blocks. It tightens it all up, freeing larger blocks of free space. Somehow, this makes everything all better. Putting everything in order makes the computer run faster and with less work.

This is much like our own lives. (Bet you didn't see that coming, did you?) We say "yes" to so many things in our daily lives that we become fragmented. Consider all the hats we wear. I started out as a son, then a brother. Now, I'm also a husband and a father. Co-worker to some, former co-worker to others, friend to many. I'm a shopper, costumer, patron, member, browser. All of these different hats require time, energy, and some even require money. shudder

Now, if I spend money on books, I may not have it for Mt Dew, which is a high priority for me. If we eat out, we may not have the money to pay bills, or buy gas. I have to prioritize and allocate my money, much like hard disk space. Bills, payments, food and gas are all large, immovable blocks. The little things, like Mt Dew and books, get randomized.

Time. I have to spend time at work. I need to spend time with my wife, with my kids, with each of my kids on an individual basis, plus "me" time. Time on the computer catching up on RSS feeds, blogs, news, e-mail, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter. Time reading, writing, blogging. Time with God.

There is only so much space on a computer disk, and only so much time and money in my life. I cannot spend more than 24 hours in one day. Trying to do too much in one day leaves me exhausted and near useless afterwards. Overspending money brings a whole different slew of problems, with which most of us are familiar.

I find at times that my life is chaotic, and I am inefficient. I am trying to do too much in too scattered a fashion. Therefore, I need to "defragment" my own life. To do this, I need to examine my life, and prioritize those big, immovable blocks: God, family, me, work.

It would be nice if there was a nice reminder that popped up every week, just like on my computer screen, asking if I wanted to optimize my life. Compress here, delete there, make more room, and everything works better. But there isn't.

Besides, I always hated defragmenting my computer. Its time consuming, tedious, and it slows my computer down, which seems counter productive. Isn't this defragging supposed to make it faster instead of slower? But, it only seems counter productive.

The same holds true in life. Defragging my life is chaotic, messy, and painful. I'm supposed to look at all those things I do, and decide if I'm going to keep doing them. Well, I started them in the first place because I enjoyed them. Why would I want to quit? Because I don't have the time, or the money. Or, unlike the nice little computer analogy, maybe these things are harmful to my job, my self, my family, or my relationship with God. Those things certainly have to go.

And what does this have to do with centering? I find the Center of All Life, and put Him there. Like a gravity well in the space-time continuum, everything will fall into His orbit, or fall away. But, I have to make that choice to put Him there in every aspect of my life. Jesus is the Center of my Christianity (duh!). He needs to be at the center of my family, my job, coworkers, and friends. When He is the Center, and all these things settle into orbit around Him, life will be more orderly, (i.e. - less chaotic), and more efficient. Life requires less work, and leaves more energy to enjoy it, rather than stumbling through our days as zombies.

When planets collide, if, in fact, they do, there is a huge catastrophe. Many scientists believe that the meteor belt between Mars and Jupiter was one such planet that got ripped apart. Our solar system is stabilized now, and we don't worry about that sort of thing anymore. When God is at the Center of my life, everyone and everything has its own orbit, and they won't interfere with each other with catastrophic fallout.