What Legacy Are You Leaving?
Pardon my hiatus from writing, I was sorting out life for a bit and honestly trying to hold it all together. From sick kids, busy work schedules, and putting time and effort towards my wife, life started to feel like a roller coaster right before the drop. I was starting to feel like I was hanging in suspension waiting for something to happen and this got me thinking. Is that how I want to live my life? Sure, I was getting everything done. Sure, I was doing my “best.” But, is that how I want to experience life? Feeling like I am waiting for something to happen? Feeling like I am Spiderman trying to stop a runaway train holding on to strands of webs that are constantly snapping under the pressure? The quick and easy answer is no.
If you have read my blogs in the past then you know that I have a bad habit of trying to help everyone and as a result I end up spreading myself too thin. It usually takes my wife telling me to slow down for me to wake up to the fact I’m falling into this habit again. I love her for it, but I should not be putting that burden on her. This is something I need to be able to spot in myself before it becomes a big enough issue that someone else notices, and to be completely transparent, I do not think I am alone in needing to learn this skill. Look around our communities and you will see people who are oblivious to the second and third order effects of their thought patterns and behaviors.
I bring this up because I fear that many of us, myself included, are so strongly in pursuit of becoming the best version of ourselves that we often lose ourselves along the way. As a result, we make progress towards a short-term goal, but move away from our ultimate legacy we are trying to leave. Would you rather be known as the guy or gal that got that task done last night because it had to get done, or as the guy or gal who was able to prioritize what was important in life and take care of themselves along with the others around them? Is it mission success regardless of the impact?
A phrase that gets thrown around my household is that things will slow down soon. It is usually followed by eye rolls from everyone who heard it because we know it’s become empty words. Life does not slow down. If it does not work, then it is the kids. If it is not the kids, then it is something around the house. Who knew figuring out what is for dinner could be such a daunting question? The hectic schedules we are on does not need to equal feeling stressed and frazzled like we are constantly under a deadline. In order to be successful in our professional endeavors, AS WELL AS our personal endeavors, we need to be better about prioritizing what is important, holding boundaries for ourselves and our time while weighing the cost of our actions.
Life is about balance, but balance without awareness of what area of our life is reaching a tipping point does not do us much good. Over the next couple weeks, I am going to focus on how we gain more self-awareness of our own personal needs, the cost of our goals, and how we are interacting with our environments.
-Daren