Hell, I’m making a career out of not needing extra attention. People come to me because I make things happen and once I take something, they don’t have to worry about it being done and done right. How’s that for a personal eureka moment? Nothing like realizing that you are repeating the behaviors you had as a child for a career. A lot of time my job seems to be all about finding ways to fix the messes other people create. While at the same time making sure the stuff that I’m already responsible for is taken care of and running smoothly. On the up side, I am being paid pretty well for what I do. On the down side, I’m not sure this is the direction I want to let things go in my life. I’m coming to realize that I need to either have a set of things that I keep running smoothly all the time – OR – I can fix messes other people find themselves in the middle. I don’t have the energy to do both at the same time and taken take care of the day to day things I need done outside of work.
I took a class a while back that dealt with dynamic systems. One of the more interesting topics was how systems affect each other. We talked about how resources are finite and even a renewable resource can be damaged if it is used at a rate that exceeds how fast it renews. The resource can be pushed to a point where it forgets how to renew.
Imagine a magic well on a cliff. The well is special because it will always refill to hold as much water as possible. As more people come to rely on the well, it makes sense to expand the size of the well and generate more water. The problem comes when people forget that there is only so far down they can dig without damaging the well. Once the last bit of rock is pierced, the well becomes a funnel and no amount of water will ever fill it again. The well no longer knows how to be a well. It can be one hell of a funnel, but there is no going back to being a well.
Who is responsible for breaking the well? Is it the ones who dug too deep or the well for always filling itself in the first place? I’m beginning to question where my limits really are. I’ve questioned what I require of other people as in what is the minimum I’m willing to accept. Now I’m asking how far I can push me. I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know that people can break in ways that are not physical and that damage is much harder to heal.