Tag: empathy

Hi All,

Here’s your weekly dose of “5-Bullet Tuesday”, list of things I’m enjoying or pondering.

 The story I loved—

I came home the other day, worn out after work. And I saw my wife laughing with our children.

I looked at her and thought, “Wow, what a life she has! How easy and relaxed. On the other hand, my own life, it sucks! Get up early, drive to work, slog the whole day. Day after day after day!”

Then I found a reason to quarrel with my wife. I was something petty, of course.

I now had the opportunity to blurt it out, “I go to work every day, slog the whole day while you, my dear Queen, are relaxing at home!”

That brought tears to her eyes. And then she said, “Look at that basket.”

I looked around to see the laundry basket. She added, “You put your clothes in that basket every day, right?”

I said, “Yes, so does everybody in the house, so what?”

She continued, “So, after you leave for work. I take out all the clothes from the basket. Then I separate them into different piles.”

I was listening. Trying to make sense of it all.

She then added, “That’s because some clothes lose color and have to be washed in cold water. Then, I spread them out in the Sun and clip them. While the clothes are drying, I look after the other household chores till afternoon.”

I thought she had lost it.

But she went on, “I then go out and check if the clothes have dried. When they do, I remove them from the clips, fold them, iron them and put them back in the respective wardrobes.”

I looked at my wife, and said, “Really, you  do all that?”

She said, “Yes”

By now, I understood what I hadn’t.

I felt small. I was ashamed.

Then, I said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t ever realize it. I always thought all that was done by the magic basket!”

I, then, looked around.

I saw many magic baskets,.. which weren’t magic baskets!

Quote I’m pondering —

What I’ve realized –

Our words sometimes can act like punches, not a physical one but a verbal one.

When someone hurts you, keep your defence mechanisms aside, and remember that the person who’s hurting you may be in pain himself.

I hurt my wife and eventually realized that I was doing so because I was myself in so much pain – one that needed to be healed.

A simple checklist that changed my life–

WORKAHOLISM CHECKLIST:

1. Do you work after 6pm? a. never b. sometimes c. often
2. Do you work on weekends? a. never b. sometimes c. often
3. Do you work on vacations? a. never b. sometimes c. often

Give a: 0 point b. 1 point c. 2 points

If you have a total score of 0, congrats! You’re not a workaholic. Your degree of workaholism varies as per your score i.e. the range from 1 to 6, one being the lowest.

Knowing this for me was the first step for me in initiating a set of measures for a better quality of life.

Podcast I’m falling in love with–

LEAD to WIN, by Michael Hyatt.

An example of what I learnt here about overcoming workaholism:

1. Set boundaries – no work after 6pm, no weekends or vacations.
2. Develop hobbies and interests outside of work. That’s because often we get so stuck at work that here life revolves around it.
3. Schedule it on your calendar. “What gets scheduled gets done!”

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