Unfinished

“Finished” is the obsession of my life.

“I will be happy and at peace when I’m finished with _________________,” I say to myself.

Art doesn’t look as beautiful, food doesn’t taste as good, and music doesn’t sound as sweet until every item on my to-do list has a line through it.

In the last few years, I’ve become a husband, homeowner, and father in that sequence. Each of those roles is teaching me that if I want to be happy and at peace, I need to learn to live with “unfinished.”

Indeed, if I want to be in lifelong, loving relationships with my wife and son, “unfinished” is the only way to be.

On most days, I have to choose between finishing my list of things to do–things that neither live nor love–or living and loving unfinished relationships. It’s easier to cross things off a list than it is to try again to connect on a deep level with someone who is as different and difficult as we are ourselves.

Even crossing off every thing on my daily to-do list is illusory. The next day comes with a new to-do list–and many items on it are the same items we just “finished” the day before.

Finishing that big thing–a career, a degree, a project, a season of life–only leads to the start of another bigger, more challenging thing.

If we live our lives in pursuit of “finished,” we’re really just deferring life until the day when we truly are finished.

And there are no more days after that day.