In case you’re new around these parts, I wrote a book called Mad Church Disease that came out last year. It’s about how I literally burned out while working at a church because I didn’t know how to manage my time or my stress.
I ended up in the hospital for a week as my body just…inflamed…itself. I was having panic attacks, was unable to treat my depression adequately, had withdrawn from relationships and at the center of it, left no time for spiritual connection or growth.
It has been five years since that burnout, and slowly and clumsily I’ve been trying to be a better steward of my time and resources. I fail often, but when I do, it’s with gusto.
Many people place their priorities in a hierarchical manner. Like:
- God/Faith
- Spouse/Partner
- Children
- Extended Family
- Career
- Leisure/Friends
Remember last week when we talked about how time in developed countries is linear? This is a prime example of how we try to work in items onto our timeline based on priority.
Let’s be real with each other for a moment.
Life is crazy and more often than not, if we look at this list of priorities they often fall out of line.
Career comes first for many of us, even if it’s not our intent. We combine things as well, like family and leisure (think weekend baseball games, recitals, etc.) or faith and career (say, if you work in a church).
These things get all jumbled up. Because we can’t make sense of them anymore, it’s difficult to put them in our linear timelines. We get stressed out, frazzled, and rushed, and just throw things where they randomly fit.
Instead of viewing these parts of our life in a hierarchy, what if we viewed them cyclically?
Let’s compare this to a bicycle.
Most of us would agree that faith is the most important part of our lives, so imagine that as the middle – the axle. If our spiritual life stays healthy and strong, the other things – the spokes – are able to function in harmony and move us forward.
When you ride a bike, you don’t check off each rotation of the wheel like a to-do list. You simply arrive at your destination.
If the axle on my bike is damaged in some way, the spokes don’t carry the weight properly, which causes the tire to bend, which will then send me flying over the handlebars. Or the frame may come loose off the axle. Either way…
Crash.
Sometimes a spoke gets messed up. Sometimes things in our lives don’t go as planned. But when that happens, you don’t crash. You can ride cautiously until you get it fixed. Or you can even walk your bike to where you’re going. It’s not ideal.
But it’s not a crash.
While this post doesn’t come directly out of the book we’ve been studying the last week (In Praise of Slowness), I think in order to get to the root of our stress and feeling rushed we need to take a look at how we spend our time.
How do you view time and priorities? Linearly or cyclically? Are you moving forward, or do you feel stuck? Is everything rotating around what’s most important in your life or are you wondering where all the time went?