One time I had bronchitis, and it lasted for more than a week. I spent a good portion of each day sleepingāand probably a fair amount of each day complaining about being sick.Ā
Of course, I still had to workĀ some of the time. My energy level was constantly low, but every so often Iād muster enough strength to trudge through a few tasks or half-heartedly reply to messages before crashing on the couch for another long nap.
Sometime around then is when I thought of the question:Ā
āWhat if I physicallyĀ couldnātĀ work more than one hour a day?ā
In this scenario, the hour-a-day workload isnāt a benefit, designed to set you free to sit on the beach all afternoon or whatever it is people think of doing when they arenāt at work. Instead, itās a requirement. You get one hour to do your work, no more. After your hour of power concludes each day, you have to wait another 23 hours before resuming.
Without a doubt, I realized that this would be a big problem for me. I was already struggling with keeping up with what Iād taken on while I was healthy and energized. If I had to reduce the available time to a single hour a day, Iād need to make much more radical choices.
Most of all, Iād have to face the classic creatorās dilemma:
1. Do a bunch of things somewhat well (but nothing really well)
2. Do one thing really well
And I wouldnāt want to choose! It would be ā¦ a tough choice.
At the same time, it might lead to some sort of breakthrough. By working such limited hours, Iād have to get much better at separating non-essential work from the key things that truly mattered.Ā
Fortunately, I made a full recovery from my bronchitis week. But every once in a while since then, Iāve been thinking about the challenge and potential benefit of such a strict limitation.
If youĀ hadĀ to work only one hour a day, and could do no moreāhow would you spend it?
Note: You could also consider this thought exercise with non-work activities, or with any other amount of time. What if you had to fit in a workout in less than 15 minutes? What if you had to plan a big trip, and instead of researching options for weeks, you gave yourself a two-day deadline to have everything booked?
You get the idea. Constraints can be helpful in helping you avoid using all the time available to you.Ā
Constraints on what you can and canāt do clarify whatās of utmost importance in life. Disabilities are a gift in this regard.
I fell off a 13-foot-high rock when I was six. Iām lucky I lived. I put my right arm out to break my fall, and the bone in that arm broke so extravagantly it came out of my skin into the air. Iām here to tell you that when bone and air make contact, a black hole of pain ensues!
I broke about five bones that day. The main bone that broke through my skin was so mangled, the story goes that āit took the biggest person in the hospital pop it back in place!ā Not a finesse job, apparently.
When the bone was āpopped back in place,ā it was not correctly lined up, rotationally, and when my arm healed, I lost about 80Ā° of rotation in my right arm. Since Iām right handed, what this means is that I canāt turn my right arm flat like a normal person, which means:
-I canāt use a normal computer keyboard. I use a vertical keyboard.
-I canāt use a normal mouse. I use vertical mice or track pads.
-I canāt do things like empty my dishwasher, because the tiny movements strain my arm so much that I get pain if I do it on a daily basis.
-Thereās just about no sport I can participate in, because most sports use some kind of stick or ball ā tennis, baseball, lacrosse, basketball ā which is incompatible with my armās capacities and the pain that would ensue. (I also have knee issues which makes running a problem as well, so soccer and other non-arm sports are out also.)
-I canāt play musical instruments for the same reason. I had a gorgeous traditional Korean hourglass jang-gu drum once, that I had someone bring back from Korea. I loved playing it with all my heart, but the pain was prohibitive. I had to sell it, so sad!
Itās taken many hours of therapy for me to accept all the limitations that have arisen as a result of losing 80Ā° of rotation in my right arm. Because of these limitations, many activities are dead ends for me.
I deeply wanted to play the piano, but thatās completely impossible ā a piano keyboard is a horizontal proposition just like a computer keyboard, and thereās no chance I could interact with it without serious pain.
Inside, Iām a musical, athletic person who would love to spend my time playing instruments and sports. But those things are almost completely prohibited because of my arm. This has forced me to go deeper inside myself, and focus on my mystical proclivities.
Despite the grief of losing these avenues of self-expression, in the long run, I see my disability as a gift because itās forced me to focus even more deeply on my inner work.
Limitations create the freedom to focus very deeply on the most valuable things, and to do the grief work of letting go of more than you thought you could ever let go of.
I now try to live by the rule āIf itās not a nine out of ten, itās a zero.ā If something isnāt a nine out of ten in terms of the level of satisfaction and meaning it gives me, I try to eliminate it. Itās a super tough standard to live by, but because Iāve done so much work accepting the many limitations caused by my disabilities, itās become easier over time.
I donāt wish physical limitations on anyone. But we live in a world with gravity, and few of us get to adulthood completely unscathed! Accepting the limitations disabilities bring us = accepting the gifts of trauma.
As a severe trauma survivor, I know that there is nothing thatās all good or all bad. Every trauma, every limitation, also carries the seed of a certain power and liberation for us, if we have the time, resources and privilege to unpack it.
As Mary Oliver said in āThe Uses of Sorrowā
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
I do this all the time with chores I donāt want to do. I give myself x minutes to do y. Example, 15 minutes to clean the kitchen.
But the real issue is paid employee work. Iāve been working a long time, in different functions. I am questioning everything including the concept of an eight hour day. If I can zero in, plan, organize something in an hour or two and execute, that most people could never do, what is that two hours really worth?