Underextend Yourself
It is the current trend in this world of opportunity for people
to over-fill their schedules, over-spend their income,
over-promise to their family and friends. All of this leads to
overwhelm, overload, and being in over their heads and
over-extended. It becomes obvious how prevalent these situations
are by noticing how many over words we have in our vocabulary to
describe them.
My bold proposal is that instead of all the overage, we practice
under-extending ourselves. A graphic analogy to demonstrate this
is to picture a rubber band around a deck of cards. If the band
is stretched to its ultimate, adding even one more card will
cause it to break and all of the cards will scatter. If the band
still has some slack and can stretch further, more cards may be
added and the deck will stay intact.
If our lives are like that deck of cards and our rubber band has
stretching room, we will be free to add more to our lives
without losing our integrity. For example, if you have a reserve
of money and a great investment opportunity presents itself, you
can take advantage of it. If you keep reserves of time and
energy, when unexpected events occur you can handle them without
undue stress. If you under-promise to family and friends and
then deliver in excess of the promise, you are a hero.
There are several ways to keep some slack in the rubber band of
your life. You can clean out some of the