The Violence of Over Work
When I was in therapy after my divorce, the therapist said that we each come to a relationship with a bucket of love chits and that we keep exchanging them, keeping our buckets full (read: best case scenario). In the case of my relationship, my bucket was feeling lighter with each passing year. I felt I was the one always bending to the beloved. Concessions, compromises, love, acts of service, and all of those love languages that we all need to buoy our marriage was strained in mine.
In a similar fashion, we have our daily life bucket, with the acts of giving, volunteering, working, showing up, being present, supporting, nourishing, and loving others as how we spend our chits. However, this bucket needs refilling as well. Last night, was another opportunity to volunteer and I sat it out. Not without guilt, no I felt guilt, but I refused to give one more of my hours in the service of others, I needed another activity, a receiving one, not a giving one, so I spent my time with friends – it was very simple, I went to a friend’s house and she made me dinner and we watched an episode of Nashville that she loves. And when I came home, another friend stopped by with a dinner to go and we spent time together. This was what my bucket needed.
The first friend says she is turning 12 this year because it’s been 12 years since her cancer diagnosis and she started her birthday clock over again when she was cancer-free. In 2011, we were walking around the Big Lake at City Park and she described how that singular event in her life had turned her life around. It was the impetus that got me thinking about selling the LaLa and moving on into a life that was more meaningful to me and less about what my dreams had been then what were my dreams now.
We keep moving along the spiral towards knowing what we need and what the world needs from us with each year that we are here.
Today, through the generosity of a friend, I have a panel pass to the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. I am going to go to as many sessions as I can, because I can, and will let these literary hours fill my bucket. This week has been a measure of give and take – taking in Stevie Wonder and John Waters, giving to Tin’s school and the Welcome Table. A push me, pull me life, but it keeps my bucket full.
The trick is to be aware of that bucket’s measure – too little and you are depleted, too much is an act of violence.
Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, poet, social activist, and a mystic wrote these words years ago, and yet they resonate today:
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
March 28th, 2015 at 11:12 pm
I have connected with everyone one of your post since I signed up. After reading them I’m too much in the connection to write a comment. The bucket, we fill and we empty. There have been times when people have offer to fill and I couldn’t recognize the offer because I was too busy filling someone else’s bucket. Really – I remember the first time I saw a call come in and though I really don’t have it to give to this person. For first time I didn’t answer and only felt guilty for a moment. I didn’t allow anything to be removed from my bucket.
Rachel, thank you so much for supporting the stuff in my bucket. I can’t wait to see you in two weeks.
March 29th, 2015 at 8:12 pm
Wanda – thanks for being a friend through the many years – friends like you are like taffy, you can pull and pull and pull and it doesn’t change the sweetness whatsoever. I’m glad what I write resonates with you. When I first started this blog, it was my hope to communicate what was happening in my life as a form of figuring out my life. Then after a decade of writing here, I came to another conclusion that I as I was learning what it meant in my life to be self-actualized, my hope after turning 50 was to help others with their own self-actualization. If any day, in any way, I get close to this act, then I am the most successful blogger in the world. Can’t wait to see you. Love, R
March 29th, 2015 at 11:19 pm
I LOVED this post, Rachel. Loved. It. And the Thomas Merton quote at the end- have never read that before but think I may print it out in multiple places around this house. I love how you really listen within to yourself and come up with these totally original and creative solutions to the problems we all face. Thank you!
March 30th, 2015 at 9:52 am
Anne – this is a topic that I have to constantly revisit, revise, and be present for – because I don’t know about the rest of y’all but I can feel the end of days and I want to make sure that I am here for each one. Thanks as always for reading and for commenting. Love, R