"How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about [arithmetic], and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?"--G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With the World, p. 129.
I have to thank the Laughing Lioness at Golden Grasses for my quote this week.
I read that quote last week when I was reading her blog. It has stuck with me all week. Saturday morning when my girls hugged me and wished that I could just be their mommy and not go to work, my mind settled on the idea that I would rather be everything to my family than anything to everyone else.
I think on the whole it is better to have Chesterton in my head this week than Palahniuk, but the ideas are related.
I listened to some motivational self-help tv show last week while trying to fall asleep. The guy was talking to a work-at-home mom trying to help her. His main idea was that multitasking and balancing are both fallacies. To be really happy, you should focus on what is important and be full of that. When you are with your kids, be with them not trying to text somebody, answer emails, make dinner and be with them. They deserve better. If you are trying to work on a business at home, make time to focus on it or it will not be successful. Quit trying to be everything at one time, and fill yourself up with the things that are important to you.
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