All day I hear people talking about how there’s not enough of it. Well, I think that’s just silly. Saying “not enough” implies we can somehow get more. That’s unheard of. We all get 24 hours in a day. You can fill that with anything you’d like. You can sleep. You can work. You can eat red velvet cupcakes. (I say go with the cupcakes.) But you can’t do everything because your time is obviously limited.
I know. You’re all shocked because for the last 40 or so years, women have constantly been told we can do it all, be it all and have it all as a reversal of the previous million years of being told we couldn’t do anything at all. It’s almost a requirement that you have it all. If you don’t have a million things in the air, you’re lazy and unmotivated. Why aren’t you raising 13 orphans, writing a gluten-free cookbook for dogs and running your startup? Don’t you know you can have it all? What’s wrong with you, woman?
You know who I blame? Angelina Jolie. I can’t stand that woman, if for no other reason that I am insanely jealous of her. Seriously, I’m supposed to give myself a break for not working 18 hour days, when she’s got a million kids, is always on location for next big budget movie in between visiting the temples in Tibet while being a UN ambassador and having sex with Brad Pitt?
If I’m honest with myself, I know it’s not Angie’s fault. Regardless of what it looks like, even she doesn’t have it all. She’s got nannies, assistants and tons of money to help her get through the day. Even with all that, she probably has a nervous breakdown twice a month. I bet she’s sitting in one of her mansions right now thinking about why she doesn’t have one more kid and isn’t planning to open a cupcake business. It’s a trap, ladies. You can’t do everything. That’s just a ridiculous rumor we’ve been passing around like gossip at a seventh grade slumber party. It just doesn’t hold up to intense scrutiny in the light of day.
I say we rethink our idea of “all.” Maybe having it all isn’t cramming our entire day with stuff so we can say we do stuff. Maybe it’s not about filling up a to-do list that we could never really finish anyway. Maybe it’s not necessarily about abundance or time, but about editing ourselves down until we know what’s really important. Maybe it’s about understanding that “all” isn’t the same thing as everything.
So if you’re saying that you don’t have enough time, you’re wrong. You have just the right amount of time. It’s just that you have been conditioned to believe that you’re supposed to fit more into it than you possibly can. You can’t have it all, but you can have what’s important . . . if you can just adjust your definition of “all”.
Princess Jones is the evil genius behindP.S. Jones Communications, where she helps small businesses, solopreneurs and freelancers focus on the big picture in their communication efforts. She’s also the managing editor of She’s Self-Employed, a website devoted to women who write their own checks. For more conversation on time limits, having it all and how Angelina Jolie is ruining her life, follow her on Twitter.
