The journey from a single bachelor living off bologna sandwiches to a parent who cares about vegetables (sort of) has shown me a few things.
You have no idea what you can handle. That is until someone comes along and starts filling your plate up with more stuff.
Capability is a funny word. It’s one of the only things that cannot define us in a rigid sense.
We’re always changing.
We’re growing, improving, stretching, and we do this almost endlessly.
Adaptation is another one of those words.
We’re constantly adapting to the world around us. To our world around us.
Our personal world moves and shifts. People come into it and leave. We’re almost in this loop of being a different person yesterday than we are today, and so on down the line.
Mostly for the good.
It seems that whenever we hear of someone else juggling 15 things at once, we convince ourselves that they have a superpower. “Well I’d never be able to do all of that!”
Yeah you would. You’re probably capable of even more than that. You just haven’t tested yourself with a plate full of items to match.
That person doesn't turn superhuman over night. It's a process. Adaptation is usually a gradual incline.
Day by day you find yourself swimming in more stuff.
Some days it feels like you're just existing. Others, surviving.
Whether you're the single person living alone, or the married one with a family, you're both striving to get through one more day.
Life will humble you.
People from all walks and an array of responsibilities seem to think that it’s not possible to get any busier.
It's fascinating—life's ability to make everyone believe they're stretched to the max. Like they can't hold anymore.
And then you'll make a decision that starts to reveal your capability. Sometimes you do this without even knowing.
You'll add a commitment to your schedule. A book club, gym membership, or any new hobby really.
You start to feel that decision, usually in the middle of a terrible week. “Ugh I forgot I had that tonight. I don't want to go!”
But you do.
You go because you chose to add something to the rest.
The best part? You probably need the book club. Or the gym. You need whatever it is you signed up for, especially in those rough weeks.
That extra commitment takes you right out of the monotony of the week and let's you disconnect, de-stress, and recharge.
You come home with a smile and you're probably glad you went. And slowly but surely, you start to understand that you're capable. For now.
And the cycle ensues.
“Okay okay, I guess I could handle a little bit more, but now I'm definitely maxed out”. Until you find you're capable again.
This isn't a burnout message. And I'm not encouraging you to go out and pile it on.
If you want to do more, add things incrementally.
Just like a puzzle. Piece by piece. When you add another commitment, you simply need time to make it work.
That commitment has to integrate with your schedule. It won’t happen right away. And depending on the commitment, that adjustment period could take more or less time.
If you commit to training your dog, it might take dedication for weeks just to get them to “shake”.
But if you're joining a yoga group, it could require a couple hours every Monday.
Once that commitment sinks into your schedule, it becomes second nature, allowing you to adjust and settle in.
It's a slow process and we can't always do everything we'd like to. But there is hope that with small steps, we could realize we are more than capable.
Getting Comfortable With Stress
The catch to finding this capability lies in the fact that we need to get comfortable in uncomfortable spaces.
If failure, opposition, and struggle are all necessary for growth, then getting out of our typical comfort is going to help us adapt and become capable of more.
That’s just how life works.
The perceived negative things in life are sometimes the most instrumental in our success.
It’s why you hear a lot of interesting and crazy stories—someone growing up in an abusive and drug-ravaged home only to find redemption by escaping and getting an education and then eventually writing a book about it.
Without the suffering, there is no novel.
Stress is such a necessary evil in the process of growth, adaptation, and capability.
Life is going to pick us up and drop us on our head. It will happen. It'll overwhelm us, test us, and shape us.
Constantly. Around every turn.
It's through this process—and this process alone—that we will find we are capable.