“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask Linda.”
That’s the sentence that started my fifteen-year career as a college professor. Not a decision I made. A question someone else asked, about me, that I happened to overhear.
I said yes because I’m a person who responds to needs. I didn’t think much of it at the time. It felt like a small moment. Looking back, it was part of a pattern in my life.
Because this is how my life always was. People kept finding their way to me, asking for things that weren’t part of my job, and I kept saying yes, without thinking about it and never noticing I hadn’t actually chosen any of it.
I’ve been sitting with that lately. Because it’s something I notice in so many of the capable women in my world. How much of what we carry, the things we just see to, we just take care of, we never actually agreed to. How it just shows up, usually unannounced, and we’re capable enough to hold it, so we do.
If that feels familiar, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
I’m getting into this more, the real why behind it, in a free conversation called “Why You Keep Carrying So Much.” This piece was just the doorway. That’s where the rest of it lives.
https://www.lifelessonswithlinda.net/carrying-so-much-roadwork-4744
Find your happy. Love what you do. Make a difference.
I hear you! People have the luxury of redirecting to you, whereas you were not afforded that same luxury!
You were a college professor?! Wow!