Matt Wahl – Leave a Little Room from mattwahl on Vimeo.
I was having a conversation with my kids the other day about human energy. I was telling them that when we wake up in the morning we each have a certain amount of energy to take care of the things we need to take care of each day. I think I made up something like we each have 10 units of energy for each day.
I was using this to explain to them how each time I have to do something for them that they could do themselves, I use up some of my energy. So, when I have to find their shoes, tell them 5 times that it’s time to go, referee a couple of stupid fights, etc. I use up energy that could be spent on doing fun things or taking care of some of the things I need to do each day.
I never know what they take away from these kinds of talks but it got me thinking about how it feels when I use up all of my energy (which I do a lot.) It feels overwhelming. I end up crabby with a short fuse, like I’ve been pushed to the point where I can’t handle one more simple thing and I’m going to holler at the next person who asks me for a glass of milk!
A simplified version of this feeling is that I ran out of room.
This doesn’t just happen with tasks, I’ve done it with money too. I know we’ve been at the point where we’ve packed our life full of expenses: mortgage, cars, kid stuff, cell phone plans, cable, etc. and it feels like there is no money left over for anything that feels like fun or recreation. Again, we ran out of “room.”
It’s super easy to do this with our schedule! Running around so much that even if there’s something on the calendar that was supposed to be fun when we planned it, it now feels like a burden. Our schedule is so full and hectic that all we want to do is stay home. We just want a little room!
We all have a finite amount of resources: time, money, focus, energy, etc. and if we don’t make a conscious effort to leave just a little cushion, a tiny bit of room, it’s easy to burn out in one, two or all of these areas.
I like to think about it like this: I don’t ever want to be the guy walking down the shoulder of a busy interstate carrying a gas can. To avoid that, I keep an eye the gas gauge in my car and make sure I leave myself a little cushion. Now I’ll sometimes let it go until my fuel warning light comes on but at that point I’m getting pretty uneasy. I know I’m running out of room.Obviously, we don’t have warning lights in all the different areas of our lives where we run ourselves down to empty but I’ll bet most of us know how it feels. It doesn’t feel good! I’m trying to be a bit more deliberate, selfish I guess, about safeguarding my little bit of room in these different areas. I know if I leave a little room and don’t run myself down to empty, I can show up better in every area of life!
