Made of Stones

This is a follow up blog post to the "Pebbles in a Jar Story" posted recently. I was reminded by a dear friend of mine, how I had twisted the story when I told it to him.

I had advised him not to let the big pebbles get too big and too few. If you only have one big pebble, you will still have room for smaller pebbles and sand (and beer!), but you will be at higher risk of loosing your big identity components.

Let me give an example. If all you focus on is your career, what will happen the day you loose your job (let's say due to a re-org) or if you get sick so you can't work anymore or when you retire for that sake? There will be a very large whole in your jar.

If you instead balance yourself with a few different priorities. Add friends, a hobby, exercise, or family into the big-pebble mix. Then suddenly if you would stand without a job one day, the other big pebbles will still fill up your jar and your happiness space. They will be there to hold up your identity.

I have seen so many hot-shot career men (yes, especially men seem to take this harder) that when they are suddenly facing themselves without a job, or getting into a divorce making them loose the family, etc, etc, they have nothing else. There is just a big void after the one or two things they had in their life. And they have to go through a crisis of building themselves and their identities up again - from scratch!

So, please have several pebbles. Big ones. And fill your identity with more than JUST being your job or JUST being a mother. You need to create your own MIX OF BIG PEBBLES. It will make pebble loss less painful and the impact of void milder.