Wearing Too Many Hats

My favorite TV show of all time is The Andy Griffith Show. Its theme song is the ringtone for my phone. But Andy Taylor was perhaps an overly busy man. Andy is a widower and father to Opie. He is both Sherriff and Justice of the Peace and active in the community. He served on the town council, sang in the civic choir, judged a beauty contest, and acted in a Founders Day pageant. He often served on social committees, attended community functions, played with the town band, and participated in organizing high school reunions. He attends church and serves on the church’s finance committee. He placed 8th on TV Guide‘s list of the “Top 50 TV Dads”. But nobody can do it all. There are only so many hours in a day, and sometimes the roles we try to play are in conflict with each other. E.g. = They tell me that one error in Andy’s community service is his being both the elected sheriff and a town councilmember; under North Carolina law he could not do both. Where are YOU overly busy?

Years ago, I told a client, “I can be your friend, your counselor or just your preacher — but I can’t be all three at the same time.” See what I mean?

Sometimes we are overwhelmed in trying to wear too many hats. I have always insisted that there are seven days in a week, and you ought to have AT LEAST seven arms in your support system so that you don’t wear anybody out. Call on one part of your support system every day, as you need to. 

If you are in the helper role, beware of becoming overinvolved in the life of your struggling griever.

Know who to refer a struggling griever to.

Work yourself out of a job.

Everybody is grieving and recovering from grief in something. We all need to learn CPR and basic first aid, because you never know when you may need to use those skills! We care enough to risk getting involved if the need should arise. We also need to learn to become emotional first responders.

One of the best ways to repay the support of others in times of your grief recovery is to pay it forward. We often have talked about what to do to bless and be blessed in handling our losses. But today we talk about the danger of being overly distracted with less important things while our friend’s needs go unmet. Today, in the calm, we need to look at our activity calendar and phone contact list and ask ourselves how we are doing in building relationships that will pay dividends when our next crisis comes. 

If you are not IN a crisis today or just OVER a crisis today — you better be very careful. A crisis IS COMING around the corner!

Are you wearing too many hats?