Know Thy Limits

New life lesson learned, "know thy limits." This should be a universal commandment for all women. I think as a whole we are so stretched thin on a daily basis that it's a wonder we do what we do at all.

My own limits were made very obvious to me recently. I thought that I was superwoman, yes I can take 18 credits at school, work 25+ hours a week, be pregnant and take care of my personal life. Really it doesn't sound like much...'til you live it.

Experts suggest that to be successful in school you should study 3-4 hours per credit hour you take per week which would equal about 54-72 hrs a week of studying. So, 54 hrs of studying + 25 hrs of working+ 7hr/wk walking dog+ personal time (eating, showering etc)14 hr a week+8 hr week commuting to school/work+ 4 hrs week of church/meetings+ 1-2 hrs week preparing lessons for church+ 7 hrs week cooking(healthy food so baby is healthy)+ 2 hrs week cleaning/laundry (should be more if I wanted my house to be really nice)=122hr week of responsibilities (not including any time for leisure time activities such as time with friends or husband...poor husband) If I sleep 8 hrs a night that leaves me with 112 hrs a week to do all 122 hrs of just studying, working, walking the dog.....

It's easy to see that there are literally too few hours a day for everything that I need to do. This schedule has really begun to take a toll on me, I'm sleeping horribly, worrying all the time and nearly falling asleep driving to my destinations every day.

So the decision was made, it was hard for me to do but I put in my two weeks notice at work. I'm sad to see the place where I have worked and grown these past few years go but I have to do what's best for me and my baby. All this stress is really taking a toll on my health and my sanity. Plus completing this last semester of school is more important than finishing out a couple months of work before the baby is born. My career opportunities with a degree are exponentially greater than without it.

So I've learned that even though I hate to admit it, I am just human; and that's ok! Swiss writer Henri Frederic Amiel says "Learn to limit yourself; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace to all that you are not; and to believe in your own individuality."

I once heard life described as a plate spinning act. You know.... those performers who spin plates on top of sticks. They can't spin every plate at once; instead they run to the plate that is losing the most momentum give it a quick spin and then move on to another. Life is like this plate spin act, we can't pay exclusive attention to all the plates at once, but the good news is that we don't have to. If the performer tried to spin more than one plate at a time or stayed on just one plate all the others would come crashing down around him. He knows that to keep the plate spinning act going he has to section his time evenly between all the plates.

My decision to remove a plate was because I found that too many plates were losing momentum at a time and being only one person I couldn't handle the load. I think this decision will leave me feeling accomplished at the end of the day instead of feeling like each day's end leaves me to sweep up the broken porcelain of a hundred fallen plates. Albert Einstein said, "Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them." I hope this recognition of my limits will allow me to accomplish more than I had ever dreamed possible.