“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.

Lately I’ve felt overwhelmed.  To put it mildly.  I’m not the most organized person…I like to just throw things at the wall and see what sticks.  Planning is good for certain things, but I can only plan so far ahead.  Multi-tasking is perfectly enjoyable as long as the tasks are things like watching t.v. and chatting online.  Not so much when you have a long list of things to be done.   It seems that (as a general rule) people who are more artistic, are not good at prioritizing and being efficient with their time.  Simple tasks become daunting.  I find that when one area of life is out of control, it is difficult to prevent overflow into all other areas.  Awareness is one of my stronger qualities, and I can definitely see that most people have a better handle on daily tasks than I.  If I’m being honest with myself, it probably isn’t a problem of time.  It’s a problem of motivation…or anxiety?  I’m also a perfectionist.  If I can’t do something exactly the way I think it should be done, I don’t want to do it at all.  I know it isn’t the best way to go about life, but it is hard to change.  Even when you do everything to the best of your ability, you can’t control other people.  You also can’t exclude everyone from your life because they don’t live up to your expectations.  I don’t mean someone who is toxic, or who doesn’t share your core values.  Realistically, people aren’t always going to do what you want.  They probably don’t even think about what you want very often.  The truth is that people are self-absorbed.  It’s not a criticism.  Having empathy is important, but if a plane is going down, you are supposed to put on your own oxygen mask first.  You can’t be useful to anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself.

These feelings surfaced when my cat was diagnosed with lymphoma.  Most people would choose to euthanize right away, and I don’t begrudge that.  We didn’t.  I wanted to give him a chance, but it is a lot of work.  You can only stretch yourself so thin, and I’m reaching my limit.  There are a lot of feelings of guilt.  I don’t feel responsible for the disease, but I feel like I should have noticed sooner.  Or maybe if he had been on an (even) better diet.  Are we making the right decision with treatment?  There will always be maybes.  I don’t know if I made the right decision, but I can’t see the future.  I can just make the best decisions based on the information I have.  If he gets to the point where euthanasia is the best choice, I have little problem doing that.  This might sound callous, but I deal with it a lot.  It will be sad, but it would be worse to live an existence of suffering.  I hope when it gets to that point, I will know that I have done everything within my power.

Challenges don’t seem to happen one at a time.  I think I would be much better equipped for life if they did.  My aforementioned poor multi-tasking becomes very apparent in these situations.  I suppose you really do have to just take it one day at a time.  Big decisions are a major cause of anxiety.  I’d just assume go through life never really deciding or committing to anything.  I had an enlightening conversation with Stace yesterday that lead me to realize that I like to visit things.  She said that you can’t always do that.  Sometimes you must pick a side.  When faced with this, my initial reaction is anger.  I don’t want to pick a side.  If forced, I become panicked and defensive.  ( Note:  It isn’t anger at the comment or the person making it.  I just have trouble accepting it as truth.  I’m aware that it is childish to feel this way.)  It is something of which I need to be mindful.

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