So this poses a problem, of course, when even you, with seemingly endless capacity, begin to get that “Wow- I’m overcommitted” feeling. It may have taken a long time, but once it happens, it’s a little scary, as it can feel a bit out of control. When we get overcommitted at work or at home, something has to give. The worst-case scenario is when you slog along, continuing to shoulder the burdens that keep getting placed on you and smiling, taking on more and more without unloading anything, and then you drop a ball. The ball drop frequently occurs in a “perfect storm” situation, which can include any combination of variables such as increased work pressure/crisis, spousal/family illness, financial stress, personal health challenges for you or co-workers, unexpected problems that impede work progress, and problems with kids at school. Regardless of the factors contributing to the storm, however, the ball drop occurs for the same reason: there is not enough of you to go around, and the resulting lack of capacity to absorb the unexpected. Hopefully the ball you drop is a little one, but if it’s a big one, the outcome can be a mess and can not only affect you, your family, or the organization you work for, but will certainly take your self-confidence down a few notches.

The best-case scenario, however, is that you decide to deal with the overcommitted feeling before the ball drop occurs. This is a hard habit to develop, especially when you’ve “made it” by being all things to all people all the time, but it’s a critical leadership passage, and one that will prolong your career as well as your mental and physical health. There are 2 basic parts in approaching this, and basically they add up to making strategic decisions about what to give away when things get to be too much.

Part 1: Say No

If your plate is full, admit it. You wouldn’t sit at the dinner table with a plate full of food and when someone passes you the next dish, create a mountain of a meal rather than saying “no, thank you, I have enough”, would you? Hopefully not . Think of saying no to new things in the same way. The next time someone asks to serve on a Board of Directors, politely decline. The next PhD student who approaches you to be their dissertation advisor, let them know you have too many commitments already to do the job they deserve. Admittedly, sometimes you’ll be asked to do something you really want to do, and saying no is not what you want to do. In that case, something else must go to make room for the new task. Remember the plate? Either eat the roll or take it off your plate before taking another helping of something yummy…

Part 2: Give it away

So if you say no to a request or opportunity or want to say yes to something new but have a full plate, step 2 is to create opportunity for someone else. This can be called delegating, but that word suggests passing responsibility down; often, you may have the chance to pass responsibility and opportunity to your peers. When someone asks you to do something and you say no, it’s best if you can offer an alternative to that person, ideally having checked with the individual you’re recommending first. If you need to unload a task or responsibility to allow yourself to take on something new, do that as well, but discuss the possibility with potential recipients of the added task before doing so. The goal here is to spread work around by giving people with capacity additional tasks, not to overload them instead of you.

Clearly, the cynics in the audience (myself included) will say “Oh, yeah- well, we all know that s*** travels downhill, right?” The key here is to pass on opportunities and tasks with integrity and from your ethical core. Listen to your gut here. Although it would be great to unload the huge, complex, painful project you’re struggling with in favor of a new, shiny, simpler one, your gut will tell you that such a move is wrong. Listen to that, and do not pass the buck when it should stop with you. If you are working on the painful project and really want to try to take on the shiny one, let your manager or colleague know that you are interested, but cannot work on the new project until you have completed the current one. Also, when passing incoming tasks or opportunities to others when you cannot take them on, think about the people you work with and who could derive benefit from taking on the task and showing they can do a good job. This can be a developmental tool for you to use, and the projects or opportunities you offer to others can be presented in the frame of “Here is something that came to me that I think would be a great opportunity for you, and I know you’ll do a great job, so I wanted to offer it to you first.” Using respectful delegation and task sharing in this way can be a wonderful leadership tool, but be careful not to overload your reports or your colleagues!

By being strategic about taking on more, creating options for getting the work done when you say no, and using delegation as a leadership tool, you can protect your time and make sure you stay out of the “overwhelm zone.” Remember, it is better to do some things very well than a number of things poorly.

• The work will still be there on Monday. It’s not as if not working on the weekend will somehow remove your opportunity to pick up where you left off on Friday.

• “Caught up” is a myth. There is always something else I can do, and what I do is meet deadlines through careful planning, not through working on the weekends.

• There are no true emergencies in my job. I am not a firefighter, physician, or hostage negotiator. Honestly, nothing is truly an emergency.

• I will not be on my deathbed saying “I wish I’d spent more time in the lab/office.” Getting to the age where more and more of my friends are dying or becoming ill has been a real wake-up call for spending time with the people I love, who, frankly, are not at work.

So what do I do to create and maintain the sacredness of my weekend? Well, I’ve set and hold some very firm boundaries and have set some goals for my personal life just as I have for my professional life. Here are some suggestions that I’ve found helpful:

1. Simply do not do email or work phone calls in the evening or on weekends. Period. The trick here is to communicate this to the people you work with to manage their expectations, especially if this is a change. Just let people know that due to family or personal obligations, you are unavailable for email and phone calls after hours and on weekends.

2. Set goals in your personal life just like you do in your professional life. If you set a goal of completing a training or publishing a book or paper or getting a promotion at work, you plan for it and work for it, right? Do the same thing in your personal life. I set a goal of learning to play tennis, partly for exercise and social activities, and partly so I can play with my daughter. I’m taking steps to meet that goal just as I set and take steps to accomplish things at work.

3. Schedule dates with yourself and other people for non-work activities. Just as you make appointments for work items or events, create calendar entries for personal and family time and activities. Plans are easier to break in favor of work if you do not have an appointment or firm commitment- seeing the date on the calendar can help make the event real and harder to skip in favor of work.

4. Use technology boundaries to separate your work and your life. Maybe it would be helpful to create different computer, email, and instant messaging accounts for personal versus professional activities, as well as separate electronic and paper calendars.

5. Decide on what you will consistently say “no” to: Figure out what kinds of work activities that may cut into your “real life” are worth saying yes to and which ones you’ll say no to. For example, I do a number of invited speaking gigs, and although I am always glad to spend the whole day with the group who invited me, I always decline dinner invitations, as that is prime family/kid/homework time, and I need to be a Mom in the evenings. Likewise, I do a minimum of traveling, and am very careful to choose only conferences that are really worth it professionally; I say no to at least 80% of what I could go to or am invited to.

It was a little tough to commit to and set others’ expectations for these changes in my boundaries, but now that I’ve done it, I find that I return to work on Monday rested, more effective in taking on my work, relaxed, and fulfilled from spending some time with my family and myself. My tennis game still stinks, but that will get better.

More importantly, when my Mom recently became ill, I back-burnered work almost completely for several days to be with her and my Dad at the hospital.  My boss was supportive of this, as he knows that I will still get all the stuff done I need to and I have a wonderful colleague who was willing and able to pick up the one task that was urgent.  I am so grateful for having that time.  As an adult daughter, this is the time I have to give back to my parents and give them at least a little of the kind of support they’ve given me, and I only have one chance to do that.  There are plenty of chances for work.

I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many colleagues and clients about the wisdom my husband imparted to me and how my own experince continues to reinforce the myth of balance.  Interestingly, this concept of accepting that it’s really okay if sometimes we let work come first to meet a deadline, and equally, that sometimes (often?) it’s necessary to put the brakes on at work to help an aging or ailing parent, make a baseball game, dance recital, or parent-teacher conference can be uncomfortable at first for working parents, as we’re supposed to have all the balls in the air at the same time. Accepting that sometimes one thing has to get a bit more attention that another is yet another way that working moms can nourish and support themselves; it reduces “superparent” syndrome instantly.

Of course, it’s not always easy to remember that it’s okay to be out of balance from time to time, but keeping a few primary things in the front of your mind can help:

1. Remember to appreciate the forest rather than concentrating on single trees: As long as on the whole the feedback you get from your family and co-workers is that things are going well and moving forward, it’s okay to pay a bit more attention to work or home from time to time at the short-term expense of the other.

2. Be kind to yourself: As a working parent, you already know how important it is to support yourself. One way to do this is to push away feelings of guilt or inadequacy you might conjure up when you temporarily favor work over family, for example.

3. Help is a good thing: It’s okay and important to ask for help when you are in crunch mode at work or at home. Ideally, you have a spouse of family nearby that can help, but another great resource is other working parents. Creating arrangements to trade child care, transportation and weekend care with other working moms can not only help you all get what you need to do take care of, but it provides additional social opportunities for your kids.

The take-home message here is that it’s okay to favor work over family from time to time, and to put family squarely ahead of your professional life at other times. When times like this happen occasionally within the context of a generally balanced and boundary-driven life, there’s nothing to worry about- we all know that from time to time we have to make hard choices to accomplish all the things we need to do. By taking care of yourself personally and professionally, you assure that your family and career both flourish in the long run.

Somehow our society had grown to value work time and professional achievement  over personal time and recreation to the point that taking time to create balance between the seemingly-endless stream of work and our families creates immense internal turmoil for many folks.  We’ve internalized society’s bias that more work=better work (a flawed premise for many reasons) such that for some people, great time relaxing, hiking, reading, or playing with our friends and families is overshadowed by a cloud of guilt that “I *should* be working.”  How sad.

Of course, as is true of most of this blog, I’m writing about this because I’ve allowed myself to fall into this trap numerous times.  I distinctly remember a while back when I’d promised my daughter that we’d play Uno (she always beats me), “as soon as Mommy is done with this email.”  Well, the emails dragged on, and finally, she asked me if I was ever going to be done.  My initial reaction was a welling-up of frustration and anger with her impatience, but as I looked up at her, I saw that she had been waiting over an hour and also, that she was still waiting patiently.  As I looked at her, I also saw how grown up she’s becoming (even though she’s only 6) and suddenly I felt guilty for a different reason.  I shut down my email, closed my laptop, and she beat me.  Twice. 

What was the guilt?  Before I know it, she and her brother will be grown and out of the house and I’ll be left with all the time in the world to do my email on the weekends.  Thankfully, I’m paying enough attention to re-focus my weekend energy into these wonderful kids and my best friend, my husband, to honor the balance that we all need between the stress of the week (work, school, homework, driving, etc.) and “us” time.  Too soon, we’ll be sending them off to college and wishing for a game of Uno.

The appointments I make with my family and myself are non-negotiable, and have to be.  I am proud of the work I do, and I enjoy it, but it’s the relationships in our lives that really matter.  It makes more sense to feel guilt for not making time to be with the people we love than for not working through the weekend; the good news is that guilt usually tells us that something needs to change, and perhaps keeping those appointments with yourself, your family, and your freinds is the solution.

Questioner: Claudia
Subject: Is this sexism?
Date Asked: 2008-09-16 20:02:01
Date Answered: 2008-09-20 11:51:24

Question:
Hi. My question is do you think it is sexist to question the Republican Vice Presidential Candidates decision to run, despite the fact that she has five children, some of whom are under eighteen and one of whom has special needs?

I was reading an editorial the other day in the dentists office in Macleans I believe it was, and a FEMALE columnist said she felt Sarah Palin should put the best interest of her children first, she also made some remark about how she would never want to be married to a man like her husband who was an “outwardly low achiever” taking on a “woman’s role”. I was quite shocked. Now let me tell you, I’m not fan of MS Palin(I cringe whenever they refer to her as “Mrs”) but she should be attacked for her views on the issues, NOT for her gender or for her decision to take on a demanding career. No one would be questioning it if she were a man and had a loving, doting stay at home wife. Also, to make fun of a man for being a supportive partner and loving father? Why are women considered selfish if they still want to hold onto their careers after having children? Do we have to choose between being sucessful professionally and being a good mom? What are your thoughts? THanks.

Answer:
Hi – Thank you for a great question, and I am sorry it’s taken me a few days to get back to you. I must tell you, I’ve been thinking the same thing every time I hear some discussion about Gov. Palin’s personal choices regarding her family. I think it is sexism, and I especially find it sad, as you did, that women often seem to be the ones commenting. I’m not a Palin fan either, but I am glad to see that women are playing prominent roles in the campaigns this year, and it is dismaying that folks seem to only see the fact that Palin has a complex and potentially challenging family situation. Like her or not, she IS a State Governor, and she deserves to be considered based on the issues, not on her personal choices. A man with a Downs Syndrome child, for example, would never be criticized, by men or women, for aspiring to the VP, unless, perhaps if he were married to a clearly career-oriented women, in which case, I suspect, she would be criticized, not him, for having a career despite having a special needs child.

This last point brings me to the questions you asked regarding professional choices for women and the judgment we receive for making them if we are moms. Happily, I do not believe that overall, society considers moms with careers selfish, especially when we successfully make time for our families (have balance) and are explicit with our kids about the fact that, regardless of gender, it’s important to always do your best, make a contribution outside the home if that is important to you, and to be responsible not only for your own life (including meeting your intellectual/professional goals), but also to support and contribute to the well-being of your family. My message to my kids is “work hard, take care of yourself and your family and have integrity, whether you work outside the home or not, whether you’re a man or a woman”.

Public figures like Dr. Laura, sadly, have fueled the “selfish mom” view you mention, which I think is incredibly irresponsible. I think folks like her subscribe to the belief that since women are biologically tied to babies (via nursing for example), and since our society, generally, views women as the “default” parent, that women *should* feel guilty if they seek a career. Having said that, I do have issues with parents (moms and dads) who work so much that their kids spend most of their time with nannies or au pairs, and rarely see mom and/or dad- the key is balance and responsibility.

I refuse to make a choice between career and family. I support my clients (and myself !) in unloading guilt and frankly, using time better to get more time with their families, more time for “mommy” time, and still having time to have a gratifying career. Part of the guilt I see in myself and women I work with comes from feeling “spread too thin” and as a result, the perception that we are not doing things well enough at work and home. Usually, this is a matter of making some wise choices about time and ordering of tasks and activities, setting and maintaining priorities and boundaries, and asking for help when we need it. Honestly, I think I have an obligation to model for my son and daughter that moms and dads can both be good parents and strong professionals. Thanks for a great question, and I’d love to chat with you more about this issue- I know it will keep coming up, both in the campaign and in general.

Warmly,

Mary

Needless to say, I thought of way more than 2 case studies, but only submitted 2, that are currently near and dear to my heart from both a faculty development standpoint, but also from an organizational management and faculty engagement standpoint, especially for our non-tenure-track faculty. Curious to see what others think about these:

CASE #1: PROFESSOR DEADWOOD WAS AN ACTIVE, ENGAGED SCHOLAR WHEN SHE WAS A JUNIOR FACULTY MEMBER, BUT SINCE RECEIVING TENURE AND BEING PROMOTED TO FULL PROFESSOR SEVERAL YEARS AGO, SHE SIMPLY SAYS “NO” WHEN ASKED TO STEP UP AND SERVE HER DEPARTMENT, COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSITY. DISCUSSIONS WITH HER DEPARTMENT CHAIR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR GOODFRIEND, ABOUT DINGING PROFESSOR DEADWOOD IN HER MERIT REVIEWS HAVE BEEN FRUITLESS, AS CHAIR GOODFRIEND DOES “NOT WANT TO MAKE WAVES” IN THE DEPARTMENT, AND SO SHE CONTINUES TO GIVE PROFESSOR DEADWOOD VERY HIGH ANNUAL REVIEWS DESPITE HER COMPLETE DISENGAGEMENT. THE DEAN’S OFFICE IS CONSIDERING INCLUDING THE DEGREE TO WHICH CHAIRS USE THE ANNUAL MERIT PROCESS TO “MOTIVATE” SENIOR FACULTY TO TAKE ON THE SERVICE LOAD THAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM, BUT IS CONCERNED THAT SUCH A POLICY WILL BE SEEN AS MICROMANAGEMENT.

CASE #2: THE NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY ON OUR CAMPUS ARE SEEKING A SERIES OF TITLES THAT WILL BETTER REFLECT THEIR ACTIVITIES AND WILL HAVE RANK ASSOCIATED WITH THEM. FOR EXAMPLE, CURRENTLY OUR COLLEGE HAS INSTRUCTORS AND SENIOR INSTRUCTORS (ALL ONE-YEAR CONTRACTS), WHO CONTRACTUALLY DO TEACHING, AND ARE NOT REQUIRED OR ENCOURAGED TO DO RESEARCH OR SERVICE. THE REQUESTED NEW TITLES WOULD INCLUDE “ASSISTANT, ASSOCIATE, AND FULL” RANKS AND REVIEW OF RESEARCH, TEACHING AND SERVICE, BUT STILL WOULD BE ATTACHED TO ONE-YEAR CONTRACTS AND PROMOTION WOULD NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH A PAY RAISE. THE CONCERN IS THAT IN THE PAST, OUR COLLEGE HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY SUED BY NON-TENURE-TRACK FACULTY WHO CLAIMED, THAT ALTHOUGH THEIR CONTRACTS DID NOT REQUIRE THEM TO DO RESEARCH AND SERVICE, THE FACT THAT THEY CHOSE TO DO THAT SHOULD MAKE THEM ELIGIBLE FOR TENURE. ALTHOUGH THE COLLEGE VALUES IT’S NON-TENURE TRACK FACULTY A GREAT DEAL, THE LEGAL ISSUES SURROUNDING THE CURRENT DISCUSSION ARE WORRISOME.

These struggles are major ones in academia, where title and rank are not necessarily accompanied by large monetary support, and where there is essentially no accountability for poor behavior or lack of partiticipation once a faculty member is tenured. Moreover, mid-level administration is constrained, largely, by its upper levels (here is a place where business and academia come together), and even innovative ideas that may be useful in engaging faculty and other colleagues that are not tied to money, but rather, have prestige or recognition of seniority associated with them, require extensive vetting, legal consideration, and sometimes, end up being analyzed away through committees, budget analysis, and compliance audits.

Having said all that cynical stuff, I am still excited about this conference, because for me, half the fun of my job is trying to find solutions to problems like these that *will* work and will not get us into hot water (warm water, fine, but not hot water). Flexibility in thinking and possibility-driven discussions have to happen, even if 90% of them don’t result in something workable. I hope to come home with some flesh for the bones of the ideas I have and some insight from others dealing with situations like those I describe above. Sooner or later, we have to find solutions to these problems, even if they are small steps that start to shift seemingly intractable problems.

Hope springs eternal!!

The lecture is a celebration of his life and a reminder of the gift we’re given by just being here, made even more poignant by the clarity with which he ends the presentation by pointing out that the talk was not for all of us, but for his 3 small children, who are now fatherless. It is humbling to watch. 

Here’s to Tiggers…

Great.    

My mind began to race to see if maybe there was something I hadn’t thought of- something I could change or move so I could make it.  I’d been through this drill alone and with my husband, and came up empty yet again, just as we had since the invitation came last night when we picked T up from his Summer Program.   He greeted us last night with an excited preview of  “Rats: The Musical”, an impromptu musical theater extravaganza put together by the kids in his Summer Program.  The school scheduled the event for the end of this week in the early afternoon-  a virtual impossibility for those of us living in the “House of Cards” that is our integrated family and work schedule.  Maybe you live in one too-  the house where in order for everything to function and go smoothly, each card is carefully and predictably placed.  Lots of thought and discussion went into building the house, and each of us knows which cards we placed and which ones we can and cannot move without the whole thing falling down.  Unexpected events at work or school have varying impact on the stability of the house, but the combination of unexpected, non-emergency (no one is currently bleeding), immediate (like tomorrow), and bad timing (husband started a new job this week;  I got a new boss last week) made this a show-stopper.   

As parents and professionals, we find ways to do the important stuff, pretty much all the time.  We are proud that up to this point, at least one of us has been at every event or program either of our 2 kids has been involved in.  This one, however, we could not do. There was just not enough time to figure out a way to move the meetings I had with my new Dean to make this work or for my husband to take off early from his new gig to be there.  It was a bummer.  

Friday night when we were talking about how it had gone over pizza at home, he told us how proud he was of the job he’d done, and that he wished we’d been there, but that he understood.  He was a little sad, and we were too, but then we all talked about it, and T realized that we’d never missed one before this, and would have made this one too, somehow, if we’d had just a little more lead-time.  

After dinner, I watched helplessly as T slaughtered all my armies during a game of Risk.  We laughed and I joked with him about taking in easy on his old Mommy, and he smiled sideways at me and gave me a long hug-  increasingly rare as he gets closer to being, as he says “in the double-digits”.  I’m so proud of him and his sister, it’s a little overwhelming sometimes.  No wonder we feel bad when husband and I can’t find a way to make it to an event, even if that’s rare.  These moments with them are precious, and I appreciate every one a bit more the older we all get here in our house of cards.

“So, what do we need to do this weekend?”

“Well, I have laundry, bills, and I have to fix the sprinklers again. I also wanted to try to fit 9 holes in- maybe we can all go again like last weekend?”

My husband referred to our creative and moderately successful bid to get 9 holes of (admittedly bad) golf packed into our weekend without a) the expense of a babysitter and b) losing precious time with our 2 kids. Despite the 7am tee time, it worked pretty well; they caught tadpoles and drove the cart when nobody was looking, and a grand time was had by all until it got really hot.

“Yeah,” I said, “that would be great. I have to get the groceries, cook, clean out the craft room, and work on a proposal for the Dean. Oh, and J has a birthday party on Sunday- are you taking her?”

“I took her to the last one, so I think it’s your turn- sorry…”

“Oh, yeah. Oops! I also have to go get a blood draw for Dr. S. Saturday since the Lab was closed by the time I got there from the office on Wednesday. It really chaps me that they closed 4 minutes before I got there and would not let me in. Who gets to close at 4, after all?”

“Okay, so when can we play golf?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’d also like to get over to visit my folks sometime…”

“Well crap. We don’t have time to do anything. I wish we had more time on the weekends- it all gets eaten up with minutia.”

Another less-than-constructive conversation about packing as much as possible into a weekend. The joys of the 2-full-time working parent household. Weekend time is so precious, yet so pressured with “stuff”- it’s hard not to get a little cranky, especially when you start to look forward to the weekend and talk about it, but at the end of a busy, hot, traffic and meeting-filled Wednesday when your feet hurt and you’re still behind on your email.

Somehow, this morning, in the cool grey light of the morning, husband and I kept talking about *the plan* for the weekend, and it seemed less onerous. We’ll fit the golf in if we can, and if the kids want to go- they are good sports to go, and besides, it’s pretty entertaining to watch Mommy’s short game. As we laid in bed, whispering to not wake our offspring and remembering how lucky we are to have so much choice in our lives, frankly, it all became okay. In fact, we remembered that the kids have plans for a lemonade stand today- one more thing to do, but today, not a big deal.

Lesson learned? Plan weekends less- we know what we have to do- talking about it only emphasizes the number of items. Regardless of when we negotiate, by the end of the weekend, we’ll have gotten most of the “have-tos” done, but not all, and that will be okay because we’ll have had some great, lukewarm, lemonade and maybe a decent putt or two if we’re lucky.

Enjoy the weekend.

Having said all that, re-entry into the home environment means, ideally, leaving the work world at work. That was my promise to myself a while back, designed to reduce the stress of work by compartmentalizing it completely. In theory, this is a great black-and-white approach, but the reality is that it does not work for me. Balance in this case is defined by the trade-offs I’ve chosen to make to get what I need at work and at home. A caveat here is that the world was much easier when I was “just a faculty member” because I truly controlled much of my own schedule. As an Associate Dean, however, I have far fewer degrees of freedom in my daily schedule; there are numerous “thou shalt attend” meetings, retreats, task forces, reports with tight deadlines, and committee meetings that are non-negotiable. Given all that, I’ve grayed my thinking and, frankly, learned to get it all done with less stress.

For example:

Ideal World: When I am home, I never do email or work- I am fully engaged with my family at all times when at home.

Real World Need: My husband and I feel strongly that our kids be home in the afternoons with one of us. To make this happen, I need to get home in time to pick my kids up from school at 3:20 on Tuesdays and Thursdays (My husband does Monday and Wednesday and we trade off alternate Fridays).

“Thinking Gray” Compromise: On Tuesday and Thursday, my husband takes my kids to school, and I get into the office by 7am. That lets me leave by 2:45 to get the kids, and then I log in and catch up on email for an hour when I get home. Then I stop working, make dinner, have dinner with my family, spend some time hanging out with my kids and husband, putting kids to bed, and then I log back in and work for another couple of hours (usually less than that) before I go to bed.

This actually works really well. and on my husband’s pick up days I let him get out early. It’s not perfect, and we refer to it as a “house of cards” because when one variable changes, we have to regroup and make it work. After 10 years of this, however, we’ve pretty much got it down, and it always seems to work out.

The older I get, the more flexible I become (Thank God) about what is enough, what is “have to”, and what is worth getting my dander up about. Thinking gray about partitioning my time, while still making sure I *do* get time to just be a Mom, a wife, a daughter, and a Professor, has made me much happier and less self-critical. All that helps me work more effectively at the University and be a more patient, engaged, and present participant in all parts of my life, even when the house of cards tilts and part of it falls apart- sooner or later we find a way to put the cards back together.