What if ... we stopped trying to cram so much into our lives?

I bring this question up because I see not only in my own life how I tend to try to cram more things into my days then I can possibly do but just how that seems to be the norm almost everywhere you go especially when it comes to kids and learning.

My kids just finished up two weeks of swimming lessons and they were excited to start them considering they just learned how to swim this past 4th of July. After the first day, they were no longer excited about their lessons and were very happy for them to be over. In only two weeks of lessons they really were pushed to learn how to float on their backs and stomachs, do the front and back crawls, tread in water over their head, retrieve rings from the bottom of the deep end, dive in the deep end off the side of the pool and jump off the diving board and the last two days were testing on all this. Wow, I definitely didn't expect beginning lessons to teach so much in such a short time. Needless to say, I too am happy the lessons are over.

I completely believe we need to challenge ourselves and our kids but I think a lot of things are done out of fear that we are not keeping up with others or with what is expected of us so we push ourselves more then we need to or should and then lose the joy of doing what we're doing.

What if ... we stopped trying to cram so much into our lives? I think if we did, we would enjoy the things that we do instead of it being a drudgery because we will begin to appreciate the whole process of what we are doing seeing that as more important rather then just focusing on the end result.