August 4, 2005
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I NEED MY GERITOL
I’ve been feeling a little over-committed the last few days and can see the signs of burn-out looming on the horizon. At work, I have seven projects installing in seven different cities (this month), and at church, I volunteered to be our interim music director and have taken over all the choirs and ensembles. I can’t remember the last time I spent an evening at home and I barely get to see my wife. I came in the other evening to an empty house. She rushed in a few minutes later with a flushed face and told me she had been outside chatting with the pool boy. We don’t have a pool, so I’m taking this as a bad sign.
I can hear the gears spinning in all your heads right now. You’re thinking; “You think YOU’RE busy! I’m the CEO of a multi-national conglomerate, I prepare 200 meals a week for homeless people, I have 17 children still at home, I volunteer at the Veteran’s Hospital, and I spend three hours each day standing outside the United Nations building so I can boo John Bolton as he comes to work.”
My advice to you is to forget the homeless people, but keep up the good work at the U.N.!
Why do we do this to ourselves? Why has the average American become so obsessed with being busy? Why do we continue to cram more and more items into our itineraries until our PDA’s explode?
I think there are several reasons:
1. We never learned to say “NO” – As children, we were taught to say our names, to say mommy and daddy, and to use at least one of about a thousand incredibly silly names for various anatomical parts; but we were never taught to say no. In fact, saying no was terribly frowned upon. The inability to say no might be a good thing for someone in their terrible-two’s, but it’s a major inconvenience for those of us in our 40’s.
2. We are afraid to be quiet. – I think that many of us are afraid that if we stop long enough and are simply quiet, we will be overrun by the voices in our heads. If the voices in your head are ones of introspection and self-evaluation, then perhaps you should listen. However, if the voice in your head is telling you that the alien master Zog from the planet Nebo wants you to cover your head in tin foil and purchase an automatic weapon, then please, please stay busy, and stay on your medication.
3. We allow too much of our self-esteem to be determined by how much we accomplish – I’ll admit that I like being the “hero” who steps up to plate, puts on the yoke of responsibility, and totes the barge and lifts the bail of a job well done (how’s that for mixed metaphors!). However, if all that responsibility just makes you a crabby bastard, then you really haven’t accomplished anything, have you?
So…I’ve become determined to slow down, to learn to say no, to allow time for introspection, and to realize that I’m not a bad guy if I can’t take care of everything that everyone wants me to do. After all, even God rested on the seventh day.
Comments (11)
now see, i thought people overscheduled themselves so they had an excuse to buy a PDA. “come on honey, i really need one! how will i keep track of muffy’s ballet carpool, my triathlon training regime, and designing mcmansions for the poor?” “but dearest, you don’t do those things now!” “that’s because i don’t have a PDA!!!”
Good luck with the slow-down.
That kinda sounds like hoe-down.
Being able to say no effectively is a great skill to have. Good post
I’m glad you’re taking the steps to slow down. Your wife and I are in agreement that we’d like to have you around a bit longer and the chuch having a “part time” (as if anything in organized religion is part time) music minister is not worth the kind of life you’re forcing yourself to lead.
You are at your best when you have the chance to be still and quiet. The voices you hear, wherever they come from speak wisdom, peace, and wit. My favorite times with you have been those times of stillness and quietness, often on the way to and from Locust Grove. Make the best of you and you’ll be that hero, whether you say “no” or “yes.”
**sniff** your son’s comment choked me up.
I’m trying to learn that the world won’t come to an end if I’m not in charge. I’m not dealing with that very well, but I’m trying.
Beautifully written. I often think about how my own life gets so busy. Some day I am gonna look back and my kids are all going to be grown up and I will wonder what happened. I think we ALL need to slow down. You said it perfectly.
I have actually learned to say no, and not feel guilty for doing so. (And I’m sure my ex will back me up on that). There is a ten year age spread between my youngest child and his closest sibling, and I think that in the interim between the two, I realized that the work would still be there whether I knocked myself out or not. But my children wouldn’t always be.
How does the song go ? “Work your fingers to the bone and what do you get ? Bony fingers” Good luck with the slowing down. It’s tough to break the habit of a lifetime.
See, you would think that “NO!” would be ingrained is us from hearing it from our parents all the time…I’ve just started getting back in the groove of being busy again and I’m enjoying it for now. I just have to find that happy balance.
I want a pool boy!
I agree that most of us today have become so obsessed with being busy, that we miss out in LIVING life.
Remember that old song…”Stop and Smell the Roses”? We need to do that more often.
I want a pool boy too.