Using work and a "schedule" to define your life

What is so interesting about my time with the book Present over Perfect...

It speaks of the busy life, how everyone is just so BUSY. Life is so hectic. Schedule is just so cram packed....and I am so guilty of this...and then the phrase But what are you going to do? pops up and then it goes to another plane...another level

SO many of my friends have said this to me...
almost at times as an excuse to not touch base on a more regular basis. But you know what? I have used this phrase as well and embarrassingly.

I have said, "But what are you going to do?"

Shauna Niequist, author of the above book, goes on to tell a story of a young pastor whose church has exploded with congregants...and when he speaks to an older pastor about this very issue...the older pastor goes on to say..."You built this, and its okay to say that. You've intentionally and strategically built this very large church." The younger pastor kept protesting, preferring the phrase, "We had nothing to do with it"...
"Well not nothing,' the older pastor went on to say. "You kept putting up more chairs."

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my goodness...
YES!!!!!!!!!!

I am a very intense, overly dramatic, passionate person when it comes to my creativity and the arts. I will bend over backwards to help out where I can, especially if I believe in a project or feel creatively inspired. Work also takes up so much of my time...I try o hard to make sure that I am pulling my weight, that I am doing a great job, that I am not disappointing others or myself for that matter..

But it is also an infringement on my time for other important levels in my life...family...friends...faith... and yet I continued to pile on the jobs in an attempt to feel artistically fulfilled.

and we keep putting up  more and more chairs...

I need to be better...Prioritizing what has a higher appropriate level of work in regards to Justin and I...I find that there are numerous times when I need to better about setting the boundaries as to what I will allow to take up my time. I have to... for my family...for my friends...for my health.

Many of us pretend that we don't have a choice...but at the very core of the situation...you really do have a choice...and you have chosen. But did you choose correctly?

Perhaps it is time to take down some chairs...