Insights Into Me - The Road to a Paradigm Shift - May 25, 2015

The story of the Golden Goose... do you remember it ?  The poor farmer who discovers one of his geese is producing eggs of pure gold.  Initially he doesn't believe it until he has the egg appraised.Once he has had the value validated, he cannot believe his good fortune and day after day he returns to the nest to find another gold egg. He becomes fabulously wealthy; it all seems too good to be true.

With his wealth comes greed and impatience.  He is finally unable to wait  any longer for the goose to produce and he decides he will kill her and take all the eggs at once. But when he opens the goose, he finds it empty.  There are no golden eggs - and now he has effectively in one moment of sheer insanity forever changed his ability to get any more. The goose is gone and so are the golden eggs.

This story turned on a light for me in several areas of my life. First, my job.

I love my job. I come to work each day with a sense of purpose, with energy, feeling happy and ready to go. There hasn't yet been a day when I have not felt that way. It is a definite positive in my life. I also spend many hours at work.  And when I spend 9-10 hours a day at work, what I bring home is
not nearly the same as what I brought to work in the morning.  I am bringing home fatigue, exhausting, lack of desire to talk to anyone, no desire to cook or do any menial tasks, occasional irritability... I sound like a blast to live with, hmm ?   With all of the "pros" I get with my job and from my job, there is a price I pay on the flip side.

I am the goose. I am the one who brings home the bacon, makes the golden eggs. And I am happy to do it for myself and our family.  But is this overworking because of external forces or is it that validation that I get personally from the long hours that eventually takes a toll in my home ? Is it my boss telling me I "must" stay ?  No...it's not his voice I hear in my head.  I cannot tell you the countless number of times he would tell me to go home, only to have me tell him, " I only have one more thing to do...", which never ended up being one more thing.

I need to own up to being a workaholic and that I work with other workaholics. We don't see it as a problem because we make up our own truth about it.  It is perfectly okay in my mind to responsible, to work hard and even work long hours as needed,but that is not every day OR ever week. By owning up to my underlying intentions about why I work long hours i.e., getting a break from being at home, needing time that is just for me, getting interaction with other people, handling the stress of living with someone who is chronically not well, avoidance, procrastination, I can make a different choice about how I spend my time and what my days look like.

If I burn myself out to the point I am unable to be healthy in all aspects of my life, then I become the farmer. I will effectively have nothing left for myself, my family or others   And I cannot blame anyone for that happening. The control is 100% mine.  I can make a change that keeps everything alive and in balance.

So which one are you ? The goose or the farmer ?