Bring the Horizon Closer: Floods, Gas Leaks, Hygiene Crises, and Wi-Fi Drama
This morning, February 1st, 2024, was an epic mess.
It started with a flood warning, the second set of floods here in San Diego in the past two weeks.
So first thing, well, after a coffee run, I drove through the pounding rain to my house to sandbag the driveway. The house is a bit downhill from the street and the curbs can get overwhelmed.
I didn’t wake up in my house in the rain, because my marriage is ending. For this story, the divorce is not the point. It explains all the to-ing and fro-ing. It is also my current opportunity for constant worry and being overwhelmed by sad project management. So bummer for sure, but think of it as character development for the happy punchline. Keep reading.
The sandbagging! It was a wet and dirty 10 minutes of carrying old leaky sandbags against my chest like heavy babies, and arranging them to catch and reroute any high water. But no big deal. It was easy work. I don’t have any formal video meetings this morning to be clean for. Just a couple project meetings with my team. I packed an extra pair of clean dry socks.
I get back in the car, throw the wet raincoat in the backseat and change my socks. I think about drive time and stopping to pick up lunch early, on the way to the office.
I look at my calendar. Hello, what’s this?? Now, I DO have a formal online meeting this morning. Overnight, someone I haven’t met used my handy scheduling app to put herself in my calendar 90 minutes from now. As I invite people to do. Based on a couple of emails, we will talk about how I am a put-together professional speaker and workshop lead for their leadership summit.
So! I need a shave and dry clothes, now. But I can’t go back to apartment where I have been staying, because it’s the product of sketchy house-flippers and they did a terrifyingly bad job plumbing the gas line, so there was a gas leak last week. The gas is turned off, so there’s no hot water. I’m happy I didn’t get blown up.
I’m okay shower-wise. I just have to go somewhere else. The no-hot-water apartment is owned by a friend who also owns a rental property four blocks away that is empty. So I go grab my shower stuff and a change of clothes from that apartment, and drive to the other apartment.
I find the lock code, and get inside. But there’s yet another hurdle for my morning: Stevie.
Stevie is my friend’s sweet rescue pit bull who stays in the empty apartment sometimes during the day. He has an extra bed there, I think, because he’s a little too much for his owner. He’s a 45-pound puppy and is so excited to see me that he jumps up and scratches at me and starts nipping. He’s strong. He’s not trying to bite me but that’s kind of what happens. No marks but ouch! I love you, Stevie, but you need to let me pass.
I make it to the shower. I make it to the office. I make it through the video call. Well, the wifi at my office stuttered and shut off during our meeting, perhaps because of the rain, but I got back in on my phone, feeling good about the fact that at some point I downloaded the MS Teams app.
After the meeting, I pause. Pause to pause. Pause to realize how much had happened in the past 3 hours. How much is going on in my life. How big my to-do list is. Basic-needs stuff with the hot water problem, and the need to start looking for a better, longer-term place to live. The rest of the exhausting sad project management of divorce. (I have a LOT of support on that front. I’m very lucky and I am making it through. I’m good!)
My work in my courses and coaching. This new proposal I get to do for this group of physician leaders we just discussed in the meeting.
I realize that I’m not totally exhausted and in need of a nap after the drama of the morning. I have a good bit of energy and mental capacity remaining for the rest of my day.
What helped me make it to lunch with some brain and energy left?
Giving up on acting and planning for the future, even as close a future as this afternoon. I think of this as bringing the horizon closer, making a conscious decision not to expect myself to think and act far ahead.
Bringing the horizon closer is something we do naturally. Very common on Friday afternoons! Here, the idea is to say to yourself, and to your team when it’s about everyone’s work and focus and level of change and uncertainty: “I’m not going to worry about that now. I will refocus on the further horizon later.”
It’s like the “one day at a time” of addiction recovery, but here it’s a short-term change in focal length. Focusing closer for a while, in your sharp mind’s eye. In what you hold yourself accountable for, what you ask your team to do. Leaders need to work further out, plan and strategize. But they don’t need to carry that all the time, in every working waking moment.
If we carry the constant expectation of ourselves that we must know and be strategic and plan and work ahead, even when it’s not feasible, it just makes us more tired. And can make us feel like we are failing, when really it is wise to let go of the far horizon for a bit. Get back to “important not urgent” stuff next week, or in a huddle with your team at the end of the month.
This morning, as my expectations and plans were dashed and replaced by a series of tasks connected by driving around in a storm, I had to focus on the current task and take it one step at a time. It was easy, because the steps were clear and most of it was physical tasks:
Get in the car. Drive mindfully so you are safe in the rainy streets.
Wrestle sandbags.
Drive again. Fetch clean, dry clothes, including a shirt with a collar.
Drive again. Wrestle with Stevie. Take a shower.
Drive again. Log in. Smile. Learn about this group of leaders and what we could do together.
This morning, I gave up on being in control, gave up on planning and predicting. I was able to put the rest of the day, the rest of the week, the big to-do list for my changing life and my work out of my mind.
On the road, I could not safely look further down the street or up into the sky. I wasn’t holding myself accountable to plan any further, to find my new home, to worry about the tasks I had planned yesterday for today. I just had to get safely from place to place. And some days, many days, that’s all we need to hold ourselves responsible for.