There’s an exchange From the Devil Wears Prada that I keep coming back to these days…

Andy: “My personal life is hanging by a thread, that’s all.”

Nigel: “Join the club. That’s what happens when you start doing well at work, darling. Let me know when your whole life goes up in smoke. That means it’s time for a promotion.”

Join the club indeed. Life is full these days, because of the choices we’ve made. I have a magnet on our refrigerator that says, well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own decisions! There have been more than a few moments where my wife and I have looked at each other and asked ourselves, are we at the brink of our capacity? We had another moment like that this morning as we both raced around the house getting children ready for school and pre-cleaning before the housekeeper comes (yep, we do that lol). All it probably would have taken is for one more kid to make one more mess, lose another item, throw another tantrum… and I would have completely lost it. Fortunately that didn’t happen (this time), but this is what comes with the territory. This is in fact what we signed up for… right? (Asking for a friend??)

Last night at a board meeting I literally laughed out loud in response to a question. It was probably wildly disrespectful, but, it was just simply one of those moments where I was too tired to have a filter. I was laughing at the absurdity of both the question, the moment, and the fact that it was quickly approaching 9pm and we still hadn’t made any decisions. To borrow a line from another movie, something’s gotta give right?

What I’m finding right now is that something in fact usually does give. Pressure bursts pipes, and there’s only so much any of us can hold. We each have limited capacity. There’s an analogy of juggling with glass and rubber balls that I use a lot in my work with leaders. Some balls you can drop and they’ll bounce back and you can reintegrate them into your life when you’re ready. Spring cleaning for example is a ball we’ve decided to drop until we’ve got the time to pick that back up again. Other balls are more fragile, and if you take your eye off of those, you’re going to be in trouble. Sometimes they break. Maybe that’s ok, perhaps we need fewer things in general to juggle in our lives. But, make sure the choice is yours what you let drop. My health, my relationships with my wife and daughters, I’m keeping my eyes on those.

It meant that after getting into the house late last night, I went upstairs to tuck in the younger girls (even though they were supposed to be asleep). Afterwards I ate dinner, caught up with Samantha, and immediately went to bed despite still having plenty of work left to do. Absolutely, we’re on the verge of something great, we can feel it. But it has also taken a toll on us physically, mentally, emotionally, and we can feel that too. I’m finding that I just have less capacity to hold space for things that don’t matter, and that’s definitely a good thing. On the other side of this season is likely a lighter way of living.

SDW3