It’ll be different…
It’s a new year. The bustle of holidays and family gatherings is over. Work is settling down after the Christmas rush. So all the over-extension will change.
I’ve spent years feeling like I’m on a tight, rough path, but there’s going to be a meadow just a little bit farther ahead, so just stretching a little thinner, and living with “less than ideal” in important things, like time with family, time invested in my wife, time to rest, all of that, well, that can be lived with for a little bit, because there is a meadow is just ahead and everything will normalize, and I can probably even make up some losses in those important things that are currently under-served for the sake of other (also important) things.
But the meadow is a lie. There has never been a meadow, every time I thought I saw one ahead, it wasn’t there when I got there. There has never been one. There will never be one. Which means I need to adapt to the trail.
If you are finding yourself stretched thin and you are rationalizing that “soon it’ll be different,” stop. It will only be different if you make it different.
Evaluate your goals. Look honestly at your life, and start pruning.
This year will be different for me. Not because I’m going to suddenly appear in that oasis opening, where the trail of life is wide and smooth and flat, but because I’m going to be intentional about dumping some of this load, and taking a machete to the path around me.
I’ve tortured the metaphor enough. Here’s the bottom line:I’m going to stop living life like a change is going to come, and make changes happen.
Care to join me?