Can we do it all?
This is a picture of my kitchen right now. Can I tell you how happy a clean kitchen makes me? (Even if it will be destroyed in mere hours when the children descend upon it again!)
I just paid a college student for three hours of ironing, doing dishes, preparing food, cutting watermelon, cutting up the meat and vegetables for the stew in the crockpot, finding missing socks (where do the socks go?!?!), and making the kitchen look like this!
The bottom line – I cannot do all things AND fulfill my calling in life.
Some food for thought for you all from The Moment of Lift by Melinda Gates — Did you know?
- In India, women spend six hours a day doing unpaid work; men less than one
- In the United States, women spend an average of more than four hours of unpaid work every day; men just two and a half
- In Norway, women spend an average of three and a half hours a day on unpaid work; men about three
There is no country where the gap is zero.
On average:
- Women around the world spend more than twice as many hours — SEVEN HOURS — as men on unpaid work, but the range of the disparity is wide
- Women do SEVEN YEARS more unpaid work than men over their lifetimes. That’s about the time it takes to complete a bachelor’s AND a master’s degree
And, by all accounts, the pandemic has only increased that disparity.
No wonder we ask ourselves why we cannot seem to grow a successful business, or why we hesitate to go for the promotion, or why we are constantly exhausted. We beat ourselves up, wondering why we can’t earn more or lead more effectively.
I’d like to argue that there is nothing wrong with YOU. You have everything you need to create what you have been called to create. Maybe you just need some help.
Muster up some courage and get what you need.