Too Much on Our Plates

Is it our 21st Century lives or is it human nature that makes us pile too much on our plates? Or maybe it is me?

All my life I have felt like I’m running about a week behind. Sometimes, I fall many weeks behind and the weight of it slows me to the point that the eternal funk that has been chasing me since childhood threatens to catch up. I fantasize that it has something to do with being a Midwesterner, with my desire to please, and with my inability to say no.

Do you ever start off your day with a list of to-dos that is say, fifteen items, and by bedtime, as you crawl to the bathroom to brush your teeth, check the list, and find that it has grown to twenty items?

But, back to the first question: what is it that makes us take on so much? I’m reminded of the famous short story by D.H. Lawrence called The Rocking-Horse Winner. There is this weird kid who is part of an affluent and busy family. It all drives him crazy but the thing that drives him craziest is that the house they live in whispers one word over and over. The house whispers the word, “MORE, MORE, MORE”. When I first read that story, it gave me the creeps, but I really didn’t understand why. Now I think I get it.

More what? I asked the first time I read the story. But now, I know that it means more of everything. More excitement, more money, more pleasure, more attention, more adoration, more love, more ideas, more adventure, more recognition, more friends, more books, more stuff, more life.

It’s hard to get around the fact that most of us are after more life so you say yes to everything that is proposed in the hope that a few of the possibilities that are set in front of you will actually bring you more life. But sometimes, like recently, they all come through. Then it snows, and that slows you down and other things go wrong and a job that must be done comes up and there you are sitting stationary like an overbooked 747. Somebody has to give up his or her seat.

Some commitment has to get short-changed. At these times I feel like I am cheating people, like most recently when I got a call from Heather, one of the people on our marketing team. She wanted to know if I had the blog ready for our Saturday email. True to form, I answered, “What blog?”

“The one we talked about on Monday. You were supposed to have it by today.”

“It’s Friday. I know, it goes out tomorrow morning, first thing.”

“Well hell.” I looked on my calendar and there it was, written in very small letters between the three people I need to call concerning carbon credits, the contractor who is building our new buffalo corral, the insurance agent I meet tomorrow, and the travel agent about the trip to speak in Baltimore. I’d done it again.

“I’ve overbooked,” I told Heather. “I just said yes to two additional commitments. The calendar is packed until Christmas. I don’t even have room to write them down. I need to read and blurb a book by Thanksgiving. I have my own novel to finish writing.” I expected her to be sympathetic. But she laughed.

Then she mocked me in a voice like mine and words that sounded vaguely familiar. “I said yes to two poor paying speaking engagements,” she grumbled. “I agreed to spend time in Montana looking for grizzly bears. I have two Herculean tasks that can only be achieved on horseback. I vowed to finish the second draft of the new novel.” Then she laughed again. But she wasn’t finished. “Emails will go unanswered; apologies will be made.”

“Where are you getting all this?” I said.

“I’m reading it off our website. It’s your blog.”

“My blog?”
    
“From 2006. Thirteen years ago.”

I was speechless. “I’ve been running behind for thirteen years?

“Probably more.”

There was only one thing to say. “I apologize. I’ll have the blog by morning.”

“Write it on your calendar!”

Luckily for most of us, other people’s lives don’t depend on our ability to deliver on promises. Luckily, it has happened to most of us before, and we know that it will work itself out with fewer traumas than we imagine in the dark of night.

For me, there will be a period of austerity where I vow to cut back and promise never to get in that position again. I dream of having time to read for fun, to watch the sun set and rise. Just sit. And you know what? This time I really mean it.