I am a Finite Resource
When you’re a teacher, your name gets called a lot of times over the course of one day. In fact, I read once that teachers have somewhere between 300–500 social interactions per day, so one day I took one of those hand counters to work with me and clicked it every single time I interacted with someone; indeed, in a day with 7 class periods, passing periods, upwards of 200 students in a classroom, passing kids and colleagues in the hallway, etc: I talked a lot to a lot of people. Even as an introvert, I usually loved the way a high school filled with life, laughter, shouting, noise. In my classroom, when someone called my name, nine times out of ten, my response was a cheerful, “hold please!”
“Hold please” showed up in my lexicon somewhere around 2007 and stuck, hard. My beloved friend and colleague drew this somewhere around 2018. “Hold please” meant: I hear you, I acknowledge that you need me, I’m happy you’re here today, and I will be! Right! With you!
Except every now and then, I’d hear my name: a sweet, piping, “Ms. Curlee?” and in my deepest heart, I’d think: “WHAT? WHAT IS IT YOU WANT NOW?” I’d have to really dig deep to pull out a cheerful “hold please!”
That moment, right there, meant I needed a minute. Maybe a day. Some real time off and self care.
Because, repeat after me: I am a finite resource, precious to myself first.
Let me put it another way (which is tricky because so many of our resources are, also, finite): think of a water well versus a bucket of water. A water well will replenish. A bucket of water will not. You and I: we’re buckets.
Life, generally, pulls from our buckets. As a teacher, each time my name was called: that was a drop of water. Now that I’m not a teacher, the demands are different, but the concept is the same. Every time I have to show grace for myself (and that’s a lot of times, since I’m a normal human who makes mistakes a normal amount of times), that’s a drop from the bucket. Every time I experience stress: a drop. Every time I show grace for others. When I have to be flexible to changing schedules, when I have to face challenges at work. When I have tough conversations. When I prepare for meetings. Or, in my personal life: when I offer love and friendship and support to others. When I have arguments. Really, literally, most things I do–those are drops from the bucket. And eventually, the bucket runs dry.
There’s a lot of productivity talk in the modern world: books on how to be more productive, articles on how to improve your habits, suggestions on how to squeeze more from each hour. We’ve even developed language around our obsession with productivity: we get “second winds” and we “power through.” We know that if we don’t fill a car up with gasoline, it will simply stop driving. Yet how many people in the workforce consistently skip lunch because they’re too busy to eat? They just…power through? How many people reading this article treat their car better than their own bodies? Our focus on work is odd, given that in the 1930s, prominent economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, thanks to technological advances, our work week would be down to just 15 hours. In 1965, a U.S. Senate subcommittee projected that advancing productivity would lead to a 14 hour work week by the year 2000, and the Wall Street Journal seconded that theory in 1967. Yet here we all are, running our buckets dry at work weeks that, for most people, are well over 40 hours (with no lunch).
Here’s the thing about a bone dry bucket: it means we are more irritable, and quick to anger. It means we’re more easily stressed. It means lowered immune systems. We become sick. We aren’t good for ourselves. We aren’t good for others. So the second wind? Powering through? Those are part of the mythos surrounding productivity. There are two kinds of work ethics: the kind where you’re willing to struggle when needed, be in it when needed, persevere when needed, and then stop to fill your bucket. Then there’s the kind where you work yourself to the bone, sacrificing yourself on the altar of productivity — and that means you eventually sacrifice those around you, too.
I, for one, have started striving to fall into the first category: mindful work ethic. I believe there are three essential practices to successfully maintaining a mindful work ethic.
First, you have to know how big your bucket is; self-awareness matters. I think it would have been preferable for me to be out ahead of that moment when a lovely young person said my name and in my heart of hearts, I turned into some sort of child-eating troll. I should have refilled the bucket before then, rather than letting it run dry. Having said that, it’s safe to say that if you notice yourself reacting differently to something that normally doesn’t ruffle your feathers, then you should know your bucket is running low. If you find that you’re irritable with everyone, then listen: it’s not them, it’s you. You’ve become the common denominator, you’re the problem, and your bucket is dry. Time for a dip in the well.
Which brings me to the second important practice: replenishment. Replenishing a finite source comes in two important ways: self-care (which is much bigger than a bubble bath, although that can be included, if necessary) and mindfulness.
I approach self-care in a variety of ways, but mostly, I try to tune into what I need: rest? Fun? Time alone? Time with loved ones? Snuggle time with my dog? (Almost always, that’s a yes.) But also, self-care can look like attention to my mental health, so ensuring I have time with a counselor, as well as people in my life who can listen and support me. It looks like taking care of my body: exercise, cooking, seeing the doctor if needed, etc. I recognize that some of those things cost money, and not everyone can afford to pay for counseling and doctor’s visits, making embodiment a challenge that society needs to meet collectively, not just something for individuals to pursue. The point, though, is to find something that gives you joy, peace, and pleasure.
But that’s only half of the replenishment equation; if you spend all of your “dip in the well” time, say, watching Netflix, listening to Podcasts, spending time with friends, going dancing, or whatever brings you joy, you’re escaping, and that’s good. But you also need to be present in your own mind, however that might best take form for you: deep breaths, meditation, techniques like bi-lateral stimulation, cross crawls, or body scans. We all need quiet time with ourselves, our minds, our bodies–even if it’s painful. Sometimes we need quiet time with our pain. Spending quiet time with our pain can help us make peace with it, come to terms with it, move through it in profound and important ways (this is true for both physical and emotional pain; I’ve meditated my way through more than one serious migraine). Conversely, sometimes we need quiet time with our joy and our success; meditating on our achievements can help build confidence and strength, overcoming things like imposter syndrome and indecision. I think no matter how you are: in pain, in joy, or anywhere in between, it’s important to develop the skill of spending quiet time in your mind, and spending quiet time with yourself, to develop mindful awareness of how you are, and who you are, and bring yourself to presence.
Third: you need time for replenishment. One of my former colleagues and dear friends used to set a “fun alarm.” It worked in conjunction with a fun list (which was a self-care list in disguise): every day, when the alarm went off, it meant it was time for her to leave work and do something fun. It got so that the rest of us were actually familiar with the fun alarm, and if we heard it, we would tell her it was time to go. In fact, it possibly meant that we had all been at work for too long that day!
While I loved her daily reminder that there was life to be lived outside work, I also know that oftentimes, much more time is needed to replenish a seriously empty bucket. I come from a family that thrives best through time spent in the wilderness; my dad once taught me about the 20–5–3 outdoor pyramid: to promote mental, physical, and spiritual health, a person needs to spend 20 minutes at least three times a week in a natural setting, like a park; a person needs to spend at least 5 hours a month in a semi-wild area, like a state park, but for 3 days a year, a person needs time to unplug somewhere much more wild: off grid, on nature, camping, in a cabin–think spotty to no cell service, wild animals, few people. While I love music and audiobooks and cell phone games, nothing actually fills up my bucket like being somewhere where cell phones, portable speakers, and the general sounds of the world can’t follow me: the “music” that surrounds me is birdsong, wind, water.
There are other, simpler ways in which I take time to myself. I’m an introvert, so there are weekends where I’ll schedule a blissful set of hours where I talk to absolutely no one. I love to bake. I take the requisite bath (although I favor Epsom salts). I have a counselor who insists on one week a year of “sitting on her asset” and watching her favorite TV shows from start to finish; as she puts it, a computer needs a hard reset, so why shouldn’t she? She told me that she’s already informed her husband that next year, it will be 10 days, not a week, because she’s getting older, so she’ll need more time for the hard reset.
For the mindful work ethic, where we maintain a full bucket of water–with awareness that we are finite resources–we have to sustain our own self-awareness, replenish ourselves with self-care, mindfulness, and carve out the time necessary to actually make the replenishment happen. Once replenished, we can successfully be in the world again, ready to dig in, face challenges, persevere through interesting problems, face tough conversations, and be present for both the struggles and successes of daily life.
In other words, hold please!
