Mostly because its not my problems that I am solving. I seem to have spent the last five days putting out fires, rebuilding lost websites, reputations, getting other people’s work done, and completely ignoring my own. How does that happen? I am too much of a competent fixer of problems not my own. And as happy as I am to help, it has become a burden of my own making — an excuse not to solve my problems or face my own hard things.
I need to be more like woman below, the problems of others muted into a much smaller elephant, nudging at my side. But she is calm and won’t be moved, focused (not unkindly) on enjoying her coffee and her own thoughts.
Top photo: Haying in Cogne, 1959 by Pepi Merisio. Bottom photo: A photo of Dame Daphne Sheldrick, one of Africa’s best known conservationists, who with her husband worked at Tsavo, Kenya’s biggest National Park. She wrote an autobiography, Love, Life, and Elephants: An African Love Story, published in 2012. (Thanks to Sarah for the heads up on this photo!)
I know this feeling all too well!
Oh yes, I’m familiar with this ‘bundle of problems’ too. Sometimes its just easier to work on others problems then your own…
It’s so tough to know when to gently refuse to step in and to let friends/family/colleagues figure it out for themselves.But sometimes it is necessary for yourself, for them. (Though I do make exceptions for my children. Can’t help that — it’s primal.)
The woman is Dame Daphne Sheldrik — she’s had a long, interesting life and is a remarkable friend to African wildlife.