Left unsupervised, I’m a zealous joiner. Every project, every committee, every study group, and every volunteer role sounds like the perfect opportunity for me to get involved and make a contribution. When I hear about a new possibility or project, my immediate reaction is to raise my hand or make a beeline for the sign-up link.
I remember the first year both of my girls were in school all day. After seven years in the trenches with babies, toddlers, and then preschoolers, what in the world was I going to do with all of this extra time? The possibilities seemed endless! What I did was sign up for far too many things; room mom for both of the girls’ classes, new responsibilities at church, and the beginnings of several projects at home. It quickly became apparent that I had overcommitted. I had overreached my personal capacity for juggling, and the balls were hitting the floor all around me.
Truth be told, I have a limited attention span. I also have limited resources in terms of time and energy. Much to my frustration, I can only be in one place at a time. I require regular food, exercise, and sleep in order to keep my motor running, and possibly even more importantly, to be nice to the people with whom I live. As much as I would like to have superhero multi-tasking abilities, I am only human.
Many of us find ourselves buying into some kind of Wonder Woman complex. Too many of us are frazzled and stressed out by the abundance of responsibilities we are attempting to manage well, while simultaneously feeling like failures because we can’t seem to keep up with how fast our world is moving.
Thanks to the hard work of the generations of women who have come before us, women today can choose to have a family and also to pursue our passions outside the home…
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