Crystal called my house tonight and left a message on my answering machine that said she thought I was spending too much time down at the local community theater. I totally agree. I just don't know what to do about it.
It is against my nature to leave something undone or to do it in a haphazard way. If I'm going to be involved in an activity, I want it to be something that I can be proud of. I'd be much happier if I could let things slide. But I don't know how, other than just walking away. I have difficulty in settling.
Truthfully, that's probably my problem in relationships. I want them to be wonderful. I want to keep working on them until they are wonderful. I want wonderful or at least the possibility of wonderful all the time. I must be exhausting to be around. I certainly make myself tired sometimes.
Not that I'm bringing this up to say that I'm going to change. I've tried it before, but I didn't like letting things slide. I didn't like just doing the minimum. I can't be happy that way. I can't be proud that way. I'm not me without that striving to be better.
When I see a problem or get told about a problem, I want to fix it. I want to make it better. I think there are always solutions. We can try them until we get one that works. Doesn't that make sense?
There are lot of bloggers out on the Net who like to point out the problems that we face. They don't seem to understand that talk is cheap. Action, that's the thing. Getting out there and making change happen. Fighting for what you believe in it. It's exhausting and frustrating, and I can tell you now that if you're fighting for something good, you will lose more times than you win, but I promise that at the end of the day, at the end of your life, you'll look back with pride. Your life will have mattered.
And that's why I wouldn't change even if I knew how.
11 comments:
Just remember, we all have to juggle a variety of balls in this life. Some are glass and some are rubber. The glass ones are family/friends/loves and the rubber ones are work/hobbies/activities. The trick is to remember which is which while you try to keep things balanced.
I totally agree with FF. That was very well said.
Very good, FF. And if you try to do everything, you're perhaps robbing someone else of the chance to do something they would do very well, given the chance. (That's what someone told me when I wound up on almost every committee at church.)
I understand how you feel about taking pride in a job well done, I am exactly the same way.
Perhaps when you volunteer for a big project you should delegate some of the responsiblites out to other volunteers. That way you will not experience 'burn out'. I learned this lesson the hard way and like FF I have "learned to be more realistic in my time and abilities".
And you are right tech, more people need to either "Put up or Shut up". Can you imagine how our world would be if everyone over the age of 18 volunteered for two hours a week for a year? The possiblities are endless.
Have I missed something here? How did "Knaves" work out. Was it well-received?
Not too busy to read, FF, but didn't have a reply to make so didn't. Also, I was involved at the theater all evening! :)
How much of volunteering for local organizations involves a desire to control them? Just a question.
That's a symptom of perfectionism, ya know. The show might just go on with out ya -- just not exactly the way you'd like.
Now, come tell me what the cows on your place said when you were growing up. (I lived on one side of our town and Tech lived on the other. Wonder if there were any micro-regional dialects in our respective cattle!)
Humph. Obviously in my desire to complain and garner a bit of sympathy -- so I deserve this -- I allowed the door to open to this. So let's address a bit of it.
Would the group go on without me? Probably. But maybe not. Not that I have a huge ego and think they can't get along without me -- although I do, of course, even though they survived for years before me -- but simply because it hangs by a thread and lacks willing workers. But that's true of a lot of civic groups. They come and go. That this group has survived so long is a tribute to the handful of strong personalities that have kept it going through the years. Personalities, I might mention, that are no longer involved because they finally got burned out; many of them crispy. Right now, the board has a lack of that driving forceful personality that propelled it forward in the past. So the question is that do I want to be one of those strong personalities? Certainly I could be. I'm not nicknamed Bulldog for no reason. But ... and this is important ... I don't want to be.
ER brings up control. Possibly he volunteers to control the organization -- although he doesn't seem the type -- or maybe he knows people that do or has seen that happen. I've never done that. Control means a lot of work and a lot of grief. If I was getting paid for it, sure, bring it on. But when it's for free ... then you have to look at whether what you're volunteering for is worth it. If the cause is worth it, then your labor -- even if unrecognized -- is worthy.
Remember that word: "worthy." It's important I think.
Now FF brings up a point about not volunteering for more than you can do. Good point. The thing is, I can do what I volunteer for. I can do most of the patron drive (in fact, I did it and it's almost over) and I can sell and create the ads (still selling them; remember I have a computer to pay for) and I can keep up the web page and write the publicity stories and I can do all this and more ... but at the cost of other activities. Trixie makes a very good point about what we juggle in life. It's all a question of priorities. I'm trying to figure out mine in this instance.
What prompted the post in the first place? Well, I was doing the patron drive, and I was encouraged by a fellow board member to just let not do something that we had promised to do for the patrons in the patron package. And I was tempted because the promised item was a lot of work in a schedule already filled with work. But ... by extension ... I had promised those patrons it would be done because I'm a member of the board and we had voted to do this and said we would so I did.
Reading this over, I discovered it sounds grumpy and fussy. I'm not sleeping well. I'm off my feed. I need a nap. Blah blah blah. I'm boring me.
Sigh.
Sometimes life just sucks green swamp water with dead insects in it.
I feel for you Tech. I agree with not taking more than you can handle, but I am just as guilty of not being able to say no. (although your yes's seem to be more constructive than my own) There are times I know I need to, but once I say yes...I can't go back. I'm committed and I take that seriously.
Anyway, hope you get some sleep, some time for yourself and some feed. :)
We (I) are (am) being selfish too. We (I) want to see more of you here. But you wouldn't be the person we (I) miss around here if you weren't so committed to the things you choose to do and stand by your commitments as you do. So it's really tough on us. We (I) cheer your character while wishing for more blogtime with you. Maybe we (I) should get a life ...
Just seen it, is all, dude.
I certainly am no perfectionist.
I mean beyond the perfectionism of anyone who is a working writer-editor by trade. :-)
Get some sleep!
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