| I read an interesting book recently by Dr. Martha Beck | | | | small business owner etc., etc., etc,. I had to be able to |
| entitled, Breaking Point Why Women Fall Apart, And | | | | leave things undone. And so do you! |
| How They Can Re-Create Their Lives. The most | | | | The poet, Mary Oliver, wrote the poem, The Journey |
| interesting thing about the book, other than the entire | | | | and it changed my life. I invite you to read it. Once I |
| book was the line that read . . . "You have to decide | | | | realized that if I did not do it somebody else would life |
| that you are no longer going to play the game." This | | | | got a little easier. Now I realized that the task might not |
| resonated with me so much because, I have tried to | | | | be done as well as I would have done it or with as |
| be everywhere and do everything for everyone. I | | | | much aplomb as I would have done it but it got done. |
| foolishly thought that I was actually doing something | | | | One of the first things I try to identify when I set out to |
| good. What I was actually doing was getting a lot of | | | | coach someone is just how much of their life is spent |
| things half done. As a mother, wife, lawyer, daughter, | | | | sustaining others and how much is actually spent on |
| sister, neighbor and resident clearing house for all things | | | | things they enjoy. I take them through this exercise and |
| irrelevant, I found myself running faster and faster and | | | | one of the questions is "how often do you play?" This |
| getting farther and farther behind. | | | | question is met with profound silence almost every |
| From that vantage point I found myself under a hair | | | | time. Some of my clients ask, "What do mean like play |
| dryer one day preparing my list of things to do just as | | | | with the kids?" I say "Yeah, if that is your idea of fun." I |
| soon as the dryer clicked off reading an article in a | | | | love my kid but playing GeoBee is about as much fun |
| famous African-American women's magazine and it | | | | for me as having tarter scraped off my teeth at the |
| hit me, that this was the only life that I had. And as far | | | | dentist. I mean, "how often do you do whatever it is |
| as I knew it was the only one I was going to get. So, | | | | that you perceive as playing," I say. |
| the question became, what was I going to do with it? | | | | For me playing is hanging out at my favorite mall trying |
| Two weeks later I was on a plane to Utah to learn to | | | | on obscenely expensive clothing. Then going for a |
| become a life coach. Immediately upon returning | | | | almond cappuccino to sip while, in route to my favorite |
| friends wanted me to "fix them." I found it amazing that | | | | shoe store. Then lunch with a girlfriend before it is time |
| there were so many people at the same cross-roads | | | | to pick up the kid from school and start the homework |
| as I. They had done all of the right things, gone to the | | | | mambo followed by saxophone practice. Anyone out |
| right schools, and gotten all the right degrees, but still | | | | there who has sat through saxophone practice with a |
| found that happiness had just left the building by the | | | | 7 year old can feel my pain. Can I get a witness? |
| time they arrived. | | | | That's how I play. That is the first step in refusing to |
| So, here is the answer to the question, how can you | | | | play the game you have to decide that play time is |
| be everywhere and do everything at once. . . You | | | | just as important for you as it is for the kids. I invite you |
| CAN'T ! Deal with it and move on. There is an art to | | | | to step out of the role of trying to be everything to |
| determining how much you have to do and how much | | | | everyone. I invite you to go out and play. |
| you really have to do. As a mother, wife, employee, | | | | |