having it all

Questions to Ask When I Want to Do It All But Can’t

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ Leave a comment

juggling-balls

As I continue purging possessions in a quest to de-clutter our home, I’ve also been taking inventory of how I spend my time. It’s a logical next step. Once our home becomes the bastion of serenity I’m envisioning, it would be nice to slow down long enough to enjoy it.

In the process I’ve created and crumpled various lists, spreadsheets, and diagrams in an effort to identify and rank my priorities. What I found is that life is messy. And while I can use calendars and lists and promises to say “no” in an effort to take control of my time, I’ve come to the conclusion that a life well-lived requires a high tolerance for detours and a willingness to accept that some seasons of that well-lived life will require, as a friend often says, “stuffing five pounds of sugar in a four-pound sack.” To extend the metaphor, right now I feel head-to-toe covered in sugar. But, heck, I love sugar!

While I’ve yet to master cutting back on how much I do, one perk of getting older is that I have gotten better at whittling away the things that drain my emotional energy. These are commitments made for the wrong reasons that leave me feeling like a maniac trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Or that put me in social situations where I feel like a square peg surrounded by round pegs.

These poor decisions always stem from improper discernment. When I say “yes” because the request comes from someone I like and don’t want to disappoint.  When I think the cause is important and assume if I don’t do it no one else will, or they won’t do it as well. When I simply forget to take time to breath and think and pray before responding.

So instead of mapping out my Areas of Interest and Circles of Responsibility, in lieu of listing and ranking my Top Five Priorities, I developed some discernment questions.

For social opportunities:

  • Am I likely to experience physical/emotional rejuvenation or depletion?
  • Will I be among people who bring out the authentic (and best) me?

For personal development opportunities:

  • Am I likely to experience spiritual and/or intellectual growth?
  • If so, will that growth help me better serve my family, my employer, others?

For volunteer/service opportunities:

  • Is this a good fit for my time and talent, or might someone else be better suited?
  • Will what I’d be doing somehow rejuvenate not only me but also those I’ll be serving?

For all:

  • Will anyone else, especially my family, have to make sacrifices in order for me to do this? If so, have we discussed it and come to an agreement that everyone feels good about?
  • The most important question of all: Have I prayed and given God time to guide my decision?

I’d love to hear how you sort through the various opportunities that compete for your attention!

Why I broke Up with (Most) Magazines

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ 4 Comments

jessica-alba

My love affair with magazines began in Ms. Burghart’s first grade classroom. I looked forward to Fridays, when we took turns reading aloud from the Scholastic Weekly Reader, THE source for kid-friendly news and feature stories.

In third grade, I discovered Dynamite, a slick-covered mag featuring pop culture, games and contests. I acquired every issue, along with Encyclopedia Brown, Box Car Children and other paperbacks, from Scholastic book order forms.

magsBy sixth grade, I’d discovered Tiger Beat. After reading the articles, I carefully pried back staples to release posters of Shaun Cassidy, Scott Biao, and Andy Gibb. A month was an eternity, waiting for the next issue to arrive.

cosmos

In eighth grade, a more-worldly friend introduced me to her mom’s Cosmopolitan stash. This catapulted us way beyond pop culture and teen heartthrobs into what real women must do to look, smell and feel sexy. Sadly, Cosmo and similar magazines remained our guidebooks throughout high school.

I didn’t read much outside of textbooks during college, but once I graduated and got a place of my own, I inhaled all the checkout staples that promised to help me organize, decorate, cook, plant, bake, lose weight, and flatten my stomach. Marriage and family led to Parents Magazine and House Beautiful subscriptions, plus countless childcare and home decor catalogs.

FotorCreated

Looking back, it really did go downhill after Dynamite.

Nearly every post-puberty magazine article I read told me I wasn’t good enough, and then offered guaranteed solutions to fix me. They set impossibly high standards in my mind for what constituted a perfect mate, career, home, meal, child…and a perfect me.

I’ve since replaced these magazines with only those that help me grow spiritually or intellectually. But recently, fashion and lifestyle magazines began appearing in our mailbox. (I suspect a daughter accepted some free offer while online shopping.)

In a moment of boredom, I grabbed the February issue of Better Homes & Gardens and read “At Home with Jessica Alba.” The teaser read, “She juggles several careers, nurtures a marriage, and together with husband Cash Warren is raising two daughters. Take a peek inside this eco-entrepreneur, model, and actress’ joyfully busy and surprisingly normal life.”

“My day starts early with yoga or spinning,” Jessica Alba says. Then it’s off to back-to-back meetings at the company she founded shortly after the birth of her first child. But she tries to be home for bedtime stories and some TV time with the hubby. She loves to cook healthy meals but confesses to having healthy food delivered when she just can’t do it herself.

Photos show a beautiful and perfectly put together Alba in a floor length dress, playing with her children in a family room artfully scattered with board games and puzzles, and a wall hanging that holds about four dozen organic herb plants. Another photo shows her lounging with her dogs. Her outfit and even her pets perfectly match the room décor.

Fotorperfect

You go, girlfriend. But BH&G editors, please don’t tell us she has a surprisingly normal life. Or if she does, your writers and photographers certainly didn’t capture it.

At least now, with the wisdom that comes with age, I can walk away from such articles feeling just fine about my family, my home, my career, and my beautifully imperfect, surprisingly normal life.

 

A Fleeting Case of Having It All Together

~ Lisa Naeger Shea ~ 1 Comment

busymom

I’m not that person who has it all together. Most days I’m working off three to-do lists: one written today with the new things I need to accomplish, and the others that were composed yesterday and the day before but still have a few items to be crossed off. The lists reside, somewhat crumpled, in my purse. Unless I leave them in the car. Or on the kitchen counter. Or in my briefcase. Or on my desk.

Today’s list was ambitious. I took time off work to accompany our youngest to her two-day college orientation. We didn’t need to leave until 11, so I got up at 6:30 hoping to squeeze in a grocery run, take our oldest to her first physical therapy session, and maybe even crank out a blog post before getting on the road.

The morning started with the usual what-to-wear-when-I-hate-how-fat-I’ve-gotten routine, combined with other practical considerations such as comfortable shoes and lightweight clothing for the campus tour, as well as a non-binding waistband and a sweater for long hours sitting in an over-air-conditioned auditorium. I settled on a little stretch skirt that’s more comfortable than any of my now-tight shorts, a solid T-shirt to camouflage my muffin top, a sweater wrapped around my waist, and sandals with decent arch support.

I headed to the grocery store, which was blissfully under-populated at 7:30 on a Tuesday. As I paid  for my purchases, it occurred to me that at that very moment I seemed to actually be on top of things.

My hair and makeup were still fresh. My outfit kind of had that next-stop-country-club-for-lunch look. I’d  finally remembered to bring the coupons I’d bought from some little leaguers AND my reusable groceries bags. My recent attempts to eat a little healthier resulted in a conveyer belt loaded with fresh produce, organic dairy alternatives, raw nuts, and other wise choices. As I packed the politically-correct groceries into the eco-friendly bags, I couldn’t help but wonder if the cashier or the young disheveled couple next in line hated me just a tiny bit for appearing to be that woman who has it all together.

I was pondering this as I loaded the groceries into my modest-but-newish car boasting decals from our daughters’ universities. I was having deep thoughts about perception versus reality when a can of Endust– that must have escaped from a box hauled home from the office yesterday–tumbled out of the trunk, onto the parking lot, and then rolled behind my rear tire.

I awkwardly squatted and bent and even did the splits a little bit in my country club skirt, trying to retrieve the Endust without exposing private parts or getting asphalt stains on my knees. A man leaving the lot drove up and stopped to watch the show. He smiled and let out a pure, hardy laugh. Once he saw my fingers wrapped around the can, he pulled away grinning and shaking his head. I’d made his day simply by NOT really being that woman who has it all together.

While it feels good every once in a while to look and feel like I have everything under control, making a stranger laugh may end up being my greatest accomplishment today. And it wasn’t even on my list.