I believe that everything that happens for a reason and that every situation is an opportunity to learn something new. My divorce was no exception.
So it was during a recent conversation with my sisterfriend, Karen, that I realized that "busy" is a relative term and I learned that 3 can oftentimes be more than 100. My ex-husband taught me this. Let me explain...
My ex was always dabbling in this thing or the other. If he wasn't telling someone how to fix their problem, he was fixing a truck, running an errand, buying hay for his horses, arguing on the phone with a customer service rep, returning something to Lowes, or catching a sale at Home Depot. He was literally and figuratively all over the place, but he was actually accomplishing very little.
You see, like us all, he had a finite amount of time and energy to give, and he chose to spread it among 100 different things, sorta like 100 different cups. He dropped a little of himself into each cup which, at the end of the day, amounted to very little in each cup.
I would have preferred him to have had just three cups. Then that same finite amount of time and energy may have actually been enough to fill all three cups. I would have seen the results of his labor, three things would have been completed, and I would have appreciated him a lot more. Instead, I saw 100 cups that were almost empty.
Wow. If I'd understood that then maybe... No, we won't go there. :-)
But the point is that there's a lesson in this for me. And maybe for you, too.
Let's slow down. Let's identify the cups that matter the most. And let's fill them to the brim.
So it was during a recent conversation with my sisterfriend, Karen, that I realized that "busy" is a relative term and I learned that 3 can oftentimes be more than 100. My ex-husband taught me this. Let me explain...
My ex was always dabbling in this thing or the other. If he wasn't telling someone how to fix their problem, he was fixing a truck, running an errand, buying hay for his horses, arguing on the phone with a customer service rep, returning something to Lowes, or catching a sale at Home Depot. He was literally and figuratively all over the place, but he was actually accomplishing very little.
You see, like us all, he had a finite amount of time and energy to give, and he chose to spread it among 100 different things, sorta like 100 different cups. He dropped a little of himself into each cup which, at the end of the day, amounted to very little in each cup.
I would have preferred him to have had just three cups. Then that same finite amount of time and energy may have actually been enough to fill all three cups. I would have seen the results of his labor, three things would have been completed, and I would have appreciated him a lot more. Instead, I saw 100 cups that were almost empty.
Wow. If I'd understood that then maybe... No, we won't go there. :-)
But the point is that there's a lesson in this for me. And maybe for you, too.
Let's slow down. Let's identify the cups that matter the most. And let's fill them to the brim.
RSS Feed