Many of you with kiddos heading or that have headed back to school likely find yourselves in the same boat as me – a little nutty, tired, busy and overwhelmed. School starts, the activities all start and suddenly the new schedule of being up early, shuttling kiddos to and from activities, running around for last minute supplies, trying to find time for dinner, getting homework done – yes, I don’t need to go on….you get it! =) If you are like me, you start to find yourself in this pattern of going, going, going and then feeling incredibly tired when all is said and done. I think I realized how tired I was when one day, I saw the dishes sitting in the sink after the older kiddos had left for school and I just suddenly didn’t want to do them! I was burnt out from chores… I wanted to just sit down for a minute and have a minute to myself!!
I recently heard a sermon which has helped me tremendously in my life and in managing my kiddos’ lives and schedules. The focus of the talk was on goals – long term goals for your life. When most people were asked what was most important to them in their lives, they talked about being a good person, being kind to others, helping someone out, making a difference in someone’s life. Those are great goals and no big surprise – we’ve heard them time and time again throughout our lives and have probably felt the same. But, life gets busy. There are chores to do, kids to raise, promotions to be sought, purchases to save for. And these little things slowly but surely, claim the minutes of our lives. The speaker wasn’t ok with this and asked us to examine if we should be ok with this for our own lives either. Yes, life is busy – it’s busy for all of us – but when something is a priority or a goal – you find the time, you make the time. For instance, in my own life, I have five kiddos. Everyone does an activity or two, some are at school, some are at home. Sure, you get it – life is busy. And just above you heard me complain about wanting time for myself. But, I also highlight my hair. I do it without fail every six weeks. I don’t miss the appointment and I take that time from whatever else needs to get done and prioritize it, because it is something important to me. Now, I have time for that because it’s important to me and I make the time.
What does this say about me? It says that my outside appearance is important to me and that I take the time to care for it in a way that I like. But how many times have I had to say no when someone asked me to help out because I didn’t have the time? That’s not wrong – that’s just priorities. It’s great and important to have priorities – but they need to be in line with your goals for your life. If one of your goals in life is to lead a good life (by whatever moral compass you use), then it is reasonable that you should spend some time everyday bettering yourself, thinking about your choices and working toward that goal. If you want to make a difference in someone’s life, you need to allocate some time to working with another person or devoting some amount of time to it.
To put it in the most basic terms – if my goal is to run a marathon, I have to run several days a week for a long time in advance of the race. I can’t just say that life got busy and then hope that I was prepared enough as I went along without devoting some real time to what I wanted to accomplish.
Don’t get me wrong – I loved the talk. It spoke to my heart, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not in the same boat. There are lots of things that I want to do with my children or teach them, that I constantly tell myself I’ll do when life slows down. If I were being real with myself, then I would say that there is time, I just choose to prioritize other things over it. And I guess that’s true in a sense, whether we like it or not.
When you are busy and stressed, it is never more important to look at the priorities that you are holding in your own life and hold each of them up to scrutiny. It’s how we all learn and improve and better ourselves along the way.
On that note, my alter ego just asked me what my priority was since I am blogging instead of handling that pile of laundry calling my name. I’m going to ignore that for now…..obviously, I’m “bettering” myself in a more important way! Lol!!
Have a wonderful week, friends and take some moment to reflect on where we are all headed.
In love and kindness,
Email Elizabeth & Heather
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