Overscheduling the journey
Ever since starting this 12 week writing journey, I’ve allowed myself one day per week, usually the weekend, to be off the cuff and fairly random. By this, I mean it’s closer to free writing than it is to actually writing an article I’ve researched. It’s more like a stream of conscious than anything planned. The funny thing is I usually end up with an article that makes some sense after all.
That may or may not be the case today because I’m a bit more tired than the other weekends. I’m tired because this weekend was fairly busy. It included church, a choir event for my daughter, 2 basketball games for my boys, a youth group campout and a fall festival event at my children’s school.
More and more I realize the number of sacrifices my parents made for me and I can only hope it will make sense to my kids some day. Today, one of my sons decided he wanted to join the drum corps at our church. This is in addition to basketball, soccer and school band. I get caught sometimes between allowing children to explore many activities so long as they focus on the important ones and allowing them to over schedule themselves.
We have so many problems, as grown-ups, with over-scheduling ourselves. Except, we tend to call it multi-tasking, which is a farce. We have many obligations, no doubt. But, we create some of the obligations ourselves and rationalize ourselves into believing they must all be done.
My wife and I struggled with the sheer number of birthday parties in our circle as our kids were below the age of 7. It felt crazy. There was a party or two or three every weekend, it felt like. I’m pretty sure we ended up adding a line item to our budget which simply said ‘birthday parties.’ It was probably larger than our mortgage at one point or pretty darn close. I’m not sure what made us succumb to it. My wife says it was wanting to be kind to everyone. But, of some reason I think it was FOMO (fear of missing out).
I’m the introvert in the family so I had no problem missing out. But, we realized at some point how much of a toll it takes on our family. There is the financial piece but the bigger stressor was the scheduling nightmare it caused. We knew it was crazy when one weekend there were four parties and my wife and I had to split up just to get the kids to each of them. It was already a stretch for me to go to the parties, a bigger stretch to enjoy them and an even bigger stretch to get our kids to the party. These same kids had the nerve to ask us after the parties, “So what are we doing next, Daddy?”
Over stimulated I say.
We’ve evolved since then. Of course, our kids have grown also.
But, there are some parties we just miss. We’ve learned to be able to say, “We can’t make this one.”
We’re learning that valuable word, “No.”
It’s such a useful term. Try it. No. No. No. Get used to it. It’s not hard once you try it a few times.
We’re working at getting our lives back.
I’m just hoping no one tells the boys about the kung fu lessons after school.
Maybe we’ll institute a max activity. Once that max is reached, you’ve got to drop one to pick up another.
We’ll see.
Maybe you’re judging me now. That’s cool. We’re on this journey…this crazy thing called life and we’re seeing what works best.
What about you?
Today is Day 46 of my 12 week writing journey. I’m starting a blog challenge tomorrow as a part of that. Wanna join?
