I was looking through some of my personal journals recently and found an entry from October 1998:
I don’t know if I can keep up this pace. Yesterday I had over 120 emails come in, and 110 the day before that. It’s very hard to stay on top of all this work. And discouraging.
I laughed out loud because now it’s a slow day when less than 350 emails hit my inbox, plus a large number of RSS feeds and notifications on sources I’m tracking. I don’t even know how many Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-in posts I see weekly.
Of course it is still discouraging at times when I don’t feel I can even get close to getting everything done. The key element is whether I believe I can stay on top of everything important. (Everything important, not ‘everything.’)
Will you let me point out something useful from the story of Daniel in the Bible?
King Nebuchadnezzar promoted Daniel (who was a young man at the time) to a very high position, effectively setting him up to run the Babylonian empire (see Daniel 2:46-49). Daniel continues in very high positions through the remainder of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, then Belshazzar, and then Darius. He was at least 70 years old at this point.
“It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.” (Daniel 6:1-4)
These officials set a legal trap to get rid of Darius, and the famous “Daniel in the Lion’s Den” story unfolds.
I hope you caught something remarkable in this story: Daniel is running the empire and his critics can’t find anything to complain about. Really? Wow! Pick any leader you can think of, and their critics will give you l-o-n-g lists of faults and failures!
Consider Jesus, also. In his prayer just before he was arrested, tried, and executed, Jesus said, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” (John 17:4) Jesus didn’t preach to everyone, didn’t heal everyone, and had plenty of critics – yet he accomplished everything important, everything the Father gave Jesus to do.
You and I can accomplish everything important, too. It is possible. Once you settle this as a fact in your heart and mind, you will be able to gain the wisdom to make it happen.
Great post, Glenn. It reassures things I have been thinking about lately as well. We can get everything important done.
It does beg the next question: what’s important? 🙂
Please forgive this ahead of time, though I could not NOT peek through the open door here…my first thought was, “import” is relative. Or is it? Being aware of the overflow of people who will disagree with me, at the very foundation of ‘everything’ is love. I will risk this one – that we all agree love is important. Everything is motivated by, for, to, through love, therefore, everything is important. Or is nothing important? Hmmm…sorry. 😉
It’s a great insight that everything important has love behind it, Virginia. But not every item that I can put on a task or project list, and not everything that I could journal about doing someday, is truly important.
Was JUST speaking with a friend about this very “issue.” “…agh, there really aren’t enough hours in the day, blah blah blah…yes, of course there ARE, I just need more refined prioritizing skills…” You helped kick my ass into action – right NOW! Thank you!
Glad I could be helpful, Virginia!
Great point Glenn. We CAN fit everything important in a day. Loved it!
Awesome post. Really inspiring.
Though, I took another bit of value from this – that you were able to get value out of a journal entry from 15+ years ago. I’d really love to build a journaling habit so consistent and valuable that it can pay dividends that far into the future.