I have been traveling the last five weekends.
I don’t how it happened exactly. I would have never planned it that way but…
There was a wedding of a close friend and co-worker in Dallas. There was a Women of Faith conference that my sister and Bianca could attend. There was a baby shower in Birmingham that I was helping host. There was Thanksgiving in Asheville with the whole family. There was a reunion of Compassion Bloggers at Deeper Still.
They all seemed like opportunities I could not turn down. So I went. Every weekend. For the last five weekends.
And it wore me out. My house is a wreck. My bills are piled up high on my desk waiting to be paid. My puppy has been neglected. My friends haven’t been properly loved on. My life is in general disarray.
But I learned a lesson. There is always a lesson.
I need to learn to say “no.” (Let’s practice it together…”nooooooo.”) I need to build more margin in my life. I need to build in down time so I can fully enjoy the experiences I say “yes” to. This is key…I found myself so tired last weekend in Birmingham that I couldn’t fully revel in the incredible opportunity at hand. (Shame on me.) I found myself knowing exactly what Beth meant when she said, “Our treasure gets lost in the same trash as our time. Where there is no margin, there is no treasure.”
In 2011, I am going to TRY to living with a new rule.
I will be in town at least 2 weekends a month.
We’ll see if I can do it. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy being in Nashville the next few weekends.
What kinds of boundaries do you put around your time?
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