I’ve been meaning to post this, but I’ve been drowning in work. I’m talking 14 hour days kind of drowning. Drinking out of a fire hose kind of drowning. Reduce the pregnant lady to tears and tantrums kind of drowning.

I’m second-in-command to a team of six at work. My boss’s wife just had her baby on Saturday, so he’s been out all week. Another one of our employees had his last day on Friday and his replacement is still waiting on her security clearance and can’t start for (probably) about six more weeks. Another of the employees just started on Monday, so she can’t really do much. That means that the work of six people is now effectively being done by three people.

On top of that, it’s one of the busiest weeks for our team since we started working for this particular client. I have 17 (not an exaggeration) written products due by Friday, which would typically take six people about three weeks. Yeah.

I’m going to take the rest of the week off from Semi-Charmed Wife, which I’ve never done before. Wish me luck & keep me in your thoughts! I’ll see you on Monday…

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I and–I feel fairly confident making this assumption–many of my readers tend to take on too much. At any given moment, we’re juggling the demands of our primary job, perhaps an extra or freelance gig or two, our families, our friends and social lives, our marriages or relationships, our health and fitness, our hobbies, and our churches, charities, or volunteer organizations. Our plates are pretty darn full. Sometimes, we just don’t know when to say when.

Your husband (partner/friend/family member/coworker) may ask, as mine has of late, why don’t you just not do some of this stuff?

To which I reply by chucking my overstuffed day planner at him, laughing maniacally, and running off into the sunset. (Note to men: This is NOT what you should say to your overworked, overstressed wife who is balancing a full-time job, a part-time job–my Examiner page, which launched yesterday, a website, and an overpacked social calendar ALL WHILE BUILDING A HUMAN. I’m just saying, word to the wise.)

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Most Americans, regardless of their personal religious choices, have grown up under the influence of the Puritan Work Ethic (or Protestant Work Ethic). According to Wikipedia, the PWE emphasizes the necessity of constant labor and diligent work in order to attain grace and salvation. After all, idle hands are the devil’s playthings…

In more modern, secular terms, hard work (and I don’t know about you, but I think of “work” as something I don’t enjoy and don’t necessarily want to do) is the key to happiness and financial success. No pain, no gain, right? Many of us believe that we are so fundamentally undeserving that we must earn our happiness and success through blood, sweat, and tears. (This doesn’t really make sense when you look at the world around you, does it? How many people do you know who’ve worked hard all their lives and are neither happy nor financially successful?)
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“Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway.” - John Wayne

 
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I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and how it affects my life. Fear of failure has been holding me back for years from trying to earn a living as a writer. The most maddening thing is that acknowledging the fear and realizing that it’s holding me back doesn’t make the fear go away. As much as my heart wants to quit my job and go for it, my fear STILL controls me. As you might image, I find this situation completely unacceptable.
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As I mentioned last week, I’ve been offered and have accepted a paid writing position. (By the way, today is the final day of the Community Experiment. Any results to report? Email or comment to let me know!) I’m extremely excited about this opportunity, and I absolutely cannot wait until the administrative boxes have all been checked and I can get started with the actual writing. It feels so good to know that I’ll be getting paid to do something I love!

Even though getting paid to write has been a goal of mine for YEARS, I might not have been as excited about this opportunity if it had arisen a year ago. As a matter of fact, I might have walked away from it. Why on earth, you may rightly ask, would I have been anything less than thrilled about a paid writing opportunity? What possible reason would I have had for ignoring it or turning it down?
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