I witnessed an amazing comeback in an Air Hockey game. A friend of my was down 5 to 0, and she came back and won 9 to 8. It was a colossal collapse by her opponent. I think he scored at least 4 or 5 goals on himself, and I know exactly how. He over extended himself. When Ms. Victorious would take a shot, Mr. Collapse would try to meet the puck head-on to create a ricochet shot that would be hard to stop. Well, Mr. Collapse would just miss the puck, and he would be stretched out across the table – totally out of position to protect his goal. In his haste to get back to stop the puck from scoring, he would knock it in. He was infuriated. It was ugly to watch.
Mr. Collapse illustrated an excellent point though. In today's society we are all so rush, rush trying to get everything done at once because we have so much on our calendars. We try to stop the puck and redirect it before we should. We over extend ourselves, and if we are not careful, we may suffer a catastrophic failure too.
My wife and I have had something do just about every night since Labor Day. We have been running around like lunatics. Now, we are very organized people, and we have a family calendar on which everything is written. We know who is coming and who is going and when. Everything has run smoothly so far. But, I am worn down and, I know my wife has to be getting worn down too. She is on the PTA, she goes to the gym three nights a week, she is on the Board at my daughter's preschool, she writes a very good blog (Molly's Lunchbox) for which she has to do prep-work, she is my proof-reader, and she does all of this is on top of being a full-time Mom.
We both know that we need to be careful how far we stretch ourselves. If we do not take a break, even for one evening, other parts of our lives are going to be affected. In my case, my work could suffer. I have too much to do in the next 6 weeks and not a whole of time in which to do it. I will prevail though. I know my limits, and I know my priorities. As soon as I am doing writing this post, I will make lunch for tomorrow, and then hit the sack. Tonight is going to be an early night this tired little guy. I need to hit the ground running tomorrow.
I realize, with the help of my wife, when I am about to over extend myself in my personal life. This helps me to stop and evaluate my professional life too. I am fortunate to have such a wonderful support system. I just wish I could apply this methodology when I am playing air hockey. Yes, it is true, that I am the Mr. Collapse I spoke about above. It was I who was up 5 to 0 only to squander away my lead and finally lose 9 to 8. I can guarantee you that my wife will NOT tell me when I am over extending myself the next time we play Air Hockey – She enjoys whooping on me too much.
(In case you were wondering, it was not my wife who beat me in this particular game. She is far too good at Air Hockey to fall behind 5 to 0.)
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