Monday, November 17, 2014

Moderation

This week I am working on my personal disciple, specifically on pacing my work efforts.  With volunteering on Monday afternoons, you'd think that today would be a gimme and I'd take a pass on moderating my expectations.  However, the best lessons are sometimes learned in the most unexpected places.  Allow me to explain...

I never go into detail about my volunteering as I treat this as part of my home life and I want to keep the blog focused on the student aspects of my life.  In short, I work the afternoon/evening at the local SPCA in the dog area.  As it turned out today, a number of fellow volunteers called out and I was solo for most of my shift.  This makes for a busy time, but it's not an impossible job.  Usually I work until 7pm, but as I would have been alone, I planned not to stay late.  Instead the canine staffer and I worked to close-up shop around 5pm.  In our push to quickly finish the daily chores, I realised I wouldn't have time to do all my usual jobs.  Of course we completed all the necessities, but I was limited to these bare essentials.  Despite my frustration, by the situation, I was forced to accept moderation.  Now this wasn't my personal choice, so I still need to work on this aspect of self disciple, however, I did experience a situation where I had to confront my limits and do the best I could with my available resources (namely time).  Sounds like a good lesson for a PhD student!

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