Juggling Within Your Limits

Audio By Carbonatix

A while ago, I attended a carnival-type event with my family where a juggler was walking through the crowd. The guy was unbelievable. You name it, he could make it do circles in the air. For a long time, I watched him, transfixed. He juggled everything from swords to bowling pins. Toss-catch, toss-catch, toss-catch—I was so impressed. Even dressed head-to-toe in carnival gear, he still looked cool to me.

When I got home that day, I decided it was time for me to take up juggling. I figured it couldn’t be too difficult, so I dug through toy boxes and found three small balls so I could get started right away. I planned to be a pro after an hour’s worth of practice. The first two weren’t difficult. I easily managed to keep a pair in the air, back and forth, back and forth. I even started feeling confident in my juggling abilities. Then I added ball number three.

Learning to juggle three things took a lot longer than I thought it would, but after a while, I had mastered basic juggling. I could get a good rhythm going, I could go behind my back, I could even toss something up from under one thigh and catch it without breaking the cycle. My kids were enthralled. My ego boosted, I tried to take juggling a step further by adding a fourth item. After all, when you’re savvy with three, what’s one more?

I soon discovered that, for me, one more was one too many. The minute I attempted to move beyond a trio, my juggling was done. Not only did I drop number four, most of the time I also dropped numbers three, two, and one. As it turned out, juggling was more complicated than I thought it would be. These days, you’ll meet a lot of people who claim to be jugglers. They’ll talk about their life and their family, how they’ve got millions of things going on at any one time. They run back and forth between meetings and car pools and appointments and responsibilities—without a double shot of espresso, they’d never make it.

Since everybody knows it takes serious talent to keep something going like that, such a performance usually seems impressive. It often seems tempting too. Like watching a guy throw swords back and forth at a carnival, witnessing a complicated family balancing act can make people want to attempt it themselves. If they can handle another commitment, we should be able to handle another commitment, people tell themselves. If the neighbor kids play T-ball, soccer, and rocket football, then my kids should play too, people think. If she squeezes in a workout five days a week, so should I…

Here’s the problem: in our continuous efforts to keep up with the Juggling Joneses, far too many of us end up tossing and catching so much that we can’t get a grip on anything. We’ve got three bowling pins and only two hands, four plastic rings and only two hands, five swords and only two hands. In order to hold on to one thing, we have to give something else a good toss. When it’s time to stop, our fingers can’t always catch everything.

Are you filling your life at the risk of losing control? Is your family juggling more than it can deal with? Do yourself a favor, live within your limits. If you can handle only two activities, don’t try more. If you can manage only eight hours of extracurricular things, don’t attempt nine. Juggling three things is a success; dropping four is a failure. Besides, rubber balls are one thing; relationships are another story. The last thing you want to do is to drop your family all over the floor.