Coronary and Ulcer Club
Tracks in the Snow
Sears Catalog
The Lit Torch
What’s Burning?
Holding Pattern
A Slower Group
More Haste, Less Speed
Greatest Threat to Family
Killed the Horse
Topic : Burnout (cf. Workaholic)
The Business of Living
“… The prayer of the fourth-century church father Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, who prayed: ‘I am spent, O my Christ, Breath of my life. Perpetual stress and surge, in league together, make long, oh long this life, this business of living. Grappling with foes within and foes without, my soul hath lost its beauty, blurred your image.’”
Coronary and Ulcer Club
The “Coronary and Ulcer Club” lists the following rules for members…
1. Your job comes first. Forget everything else.
2. Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays are fine times to be working at the office. There will be nobody else there to bother you.
3. Always have your briefcase with you when not at your desk. This provides an opportunity to review completely all the troubles and worries of the day.
4. Never say “no” to a request. Always say “yes.”
5. Accept all invitations to meetings, banquets, committees, etc.
6. All forms of recreation are a waste of time.
7. Never delegate responsibility to others; carry the entire load yourself.
8. If your work calls for traveling, work all day and travel at night to keep that appointment you made for the next morning.
9. No matter how many jobs you already are doing, remember you always can take on more.
Tracks in the Snow
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright once told of an incident that may have seemed insignificant at the time, but had a profound influence on the rest of his life. The winter he was 9, he went walking across a snow-covered field with his reserved, no-nonsense uncle. As the two of them reached the far end of the field, his uncle stopped him. He pointed out his own tracks in the snow, straight and true as an arrow’s flight, and then young Frank’s tracks meandering all over the field. “Notice how your tracks wander aimlessly from the fence to the cattle to the woods and back again,” his uncle said. “And see how my tracks aim directly to my goal. There is an important lesson in that.”
Years later the world-famous architect liked to tell how this experience had greatly contributed to his philosophy in life. “I determined right then,” he’d say with a twinkle in his eye, “not to miss most things in life, as my uncle had.”
Sears Catalog
Young Richard Sears was a railroad agent in Redwood, Minnesota when he discovered he could order watches from the manufacturer, then reship them to agents down the line who sold them to local people. Sears launched a mail-order company, later teaming up with Alvah Roebuck.
By 1894, Sears Roebuck & Co. had a 300-page catalog, but orders rolled in so fast that Sears simply burned order forms when he fell too far behind! A brilliant businessman named Julius Rosenwald brought order to the chaos, making many changes and innovations as he made the company work.
By 1908, Sears himself was out of the picture, but even in Rosenwald’s massive overhaul of the business, he was wise enough to preserve the best of the past—the “book,” the famous Sears catalog, which has earned a place in American folklore.
The Lit Torch
The Greeks had a race in their Olympic games that was unique. The winner was not the runner who finished first. It was the runner who finished with his torch still lit. I want to run all the way with the flame of my torch still lit for Him.
What’s Burning?
Imagine a wick that is placed in oil, and then lit. If the oil runs out, the wick burns. As long as there is oil, the wick doesn’t burn. As long as we are living in dependence on the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t burn out. The question to ask: what’s burning'
Holding Pattern
On Jan 25, 1990, Avianca Flight 52 from Colombia crashed just 15 miles short of New York’s Kennedy International Airport, killing 73 passengers. Reason: the plane just ran out of gas. Under international regulations, an airliner must carry enough fuel to reach its destination as well as its assigned alternate, plus enough extra to handle at least 45 minutes of delays. Due to low fuel condition, the Avianca pilots had requested “priority” (not “emergency”) landing. Because the exact word “emergency” was not used, and due to heavy traffic and bad weather conditions, the ill-fated plane was placed on a holding pattern…until it simply ran out of gas.
A Slower Group
A first-grader wondered why her father brought home a briefcase full of work every evening. Her mother explained, “Daddy has so much to do that he can’t finish it all at the office.” “Well, then,” asked the child innocently, “why don’t they put him in a slower group?”
More Haste, Less Speed
Do not be in too great a hurry. There is time for everything that has to be done. He who gave you your lifework has given you just enough time to do it in. The length of life’s candle is measured out according to the length of your required task. You must take necessary time for meditation, for sleep, for food, for the enjoyment of human love and friendship; and even then there will be time enough left for your necessary duties. More haste, less speed! The feverish hand often gives itself additional toil. “He that believeth shall not make haste.”
Greatest Threat to Family
Parents rate their inability to spend enough time with their children as the greatest threat to the family. In a survey conducted for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Corp. , 35 percent pointed to time constraints as the most important reason for the decline in family values. Another 22 percent mentioned a lack of parental discipline. While 63 percent listed family as their greatest source of pleasure, only 44 percent described the quality of family life in America as good or excellent. And only 34 percent expected it to be good or excellent by 1999. Despite their expressed desire for more family time, two-thirds of those surveyed say they would probably accept a job that required more time away from home if it offered higher income or greater prestige.
Killed the Horse
Of nineteenth-century preacher Robert Murray McCheyne: After graduating from Edinburgh University at age fourteen in 1827 and leading a Presbyterian congregation of over a thousand at age twenty-three, he worked so hard that his health finally broke. Before dying at age twenty-nine he wrote, “God gave me a message to deliver and a horse to ride. Alas, I have killed the horse and now I cannot deliver the message.”
Of Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the U. S. Senate, “In Peter’s case, I am certain that it was not God’s ideal will that he die of coronary occlusion at forty-six” (Catherine Marshall, in Something More). After his first heart attack a friend asked, “I’m curious to know something. What did you learn during your illness?” “Do you really want to know?” Peter answered promptly. “I learned that the Kingdom of God goes on without Peter Marshall.”
