“Other than assignments for high school and/or college… have you ever found yourself required/committed to a project that you wished you’d never encountered?”
The short answer to the question is simple. Yes, of course I have. Hasn’t everyone at some time or other? The trick is to know when to step up and when to let things go, but that’s super hard to do. After all, many of the projects or activities we do are for very good reasons. They aren’t just something we’re doing to waste time.
My own story with burnout, and I guess that’s what you’d get if you continually over scheduled and over booked yourself, happened many years ago. I had two boys in elementary school, and a husband who worked out of town most of the week. That meant the majority of their care fell on me. In this particular year that I’m speaking of my boys were on two different baseball teams whose schedules overlapped. I constantly felt stressed because I could only be in one place at a time. The kids didn’t make matters any better. Info that the coach sent home to the parents, including schedules, never made it home.
In that year I was also the chairman of a ladies’ group who had a big Christmas bazaar every year. We had to start months before Christmas. Most of the ladies cooperative and did what they were expected to do, but of course there was a small contingent who dragged their feet and refused to do what the club expected.
On top of this I was asked to be the president of an educational sorority. That of course included scheduling speakers, organizing refreshments, setting up altruistic projects, etc.
Now remember that I was a full time teacher at the time, and so I was responsible for all the tasks that a teacher had to do.
I worried about all I had to do until I made myself miserable. My husband said, “Just do the ones you want and forget about the rest. That solution had never occurred to me. I’d already started the Christmas work, and I wasn’t about to stop going to my sons’ games, but I declined to be president of the educational sorority. I’m still a member of the group, but I never did agree to hold an office.
My life was so much easier and organized that I vowed never to overextend myself again. And I haven’t. I pick and choose carefully. I’m retired too, and I want to save time for my husband and my grandchildren. I haven’t regretted my decision. I’m a person who needs some quiet time to decompress, and this way I have the time I need. It makes me feel so much better.
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