When you realize you can't do it all
The necessity of embracing our limitations
Welcome to today’s post on A More Beautiful Way, a newsletter curated by me, Bethaney Wilkinson. This publication is all about slow living, spiritual formation and about what it means to cultivate rootedness in modern times.
I recently migrated my email list to Substack, so if you’re new here, welcome. I hope you find yourself breathing more deeply as you engage the writing, stories and community connections available here.
Also, quick note: read to the end for invitations to upcoming events.
Today, I’m thinking about limits.
I woke up this morning with an acute awareness that every hour I give to doing one activity is an hour I’m not giving to another activity. I know it sounds simple and obvious. But every so often, I find myself believing the lie that if I just worked harder and organized things better, then I would be invincible. I would be able to do it all, juggle all of the balls, spin all of the plates and I wouldn’t break a sweat.
Of course, there’s a lot of cultural programming that feeds this lie. As Dr. Cherini Ghobrial articulated on this week’s episode of A More Beautiful Way podcast, we’re often programmed to be high-achieving. Working beyond our capacity and pushing our bodies to the brink is celebrated and rewarded. We’re given more money, more praise, and more advancement when we compromise our limits for the sake of reaching certain goals. Unlearning this type of hustle and grind is the counter-cultural work of a lifetime.
Our refusal to acknowledge and embrace our limits also has implications for our how we respond to suffering. It’s difficult to acknowledge that even with all of the best political organizing and activism, we don’t have a final say in the choices our elected leaders make to fund or defund war. It’s difficult to sit with friends who are struggling in their marriages or are navigating difficulties with their kids, and to know that beyond praying and listening, we are quite powerless to shift the dynamics they are living through. Gosh, even in our own bodies, how often do we encounter pain or illness that despite our best efforts seem to take our lives in directions we never thought we’d go.
We have limits, which is both the blessing and the burden of being human.
I recently turned down an incredible job opportunity because it’s too far from my home. I could commute and I seriously considered doing so because I knew I’d love the work. But one of the values I seek to live by is rootedness which requires a wholehearted dedication to a specific place, even when it’s costly.
Wendell Berry, either in an interview I once heard or in an article I once read1, talked about the creativity and sacrifice required to tend to one acre well. He likened it to the creativity and sacrifice required to love one spouse well, over the course of an entire lifetime. Yes, perhaps we could do great things with more. Perhaps we could experience fun and newness and adventure if we reached beyond our limits. Perhaps we should push and reach beyond what we’ve known.
But also, perhaps we could do great things with less. Maybe our imaginations would take flight. Maybe we’d even bump into that rare and grounding experience of contentment, of actually having and being grateful for enough.
As uncomfortable as it is to confront our inability to change people, our inability to stop a war, our inability to make the world what we believe it should be, I am finding hope in the process of awakening to what is within my ability to shape and influence for the better.
I can’t stop the wars and conflicts around the globe. I can attend to the ways I interact with my husband, with my friends and with my online community, doing my best to scatter seeds of connection and love. I can’t singlehandedly stop Islamophobia or antisemitism, but I can work towards uprooting hate and fear of the “other” from within my own heart. I can’t single-handedly change United States foreign policy, but I can show up and cast votes in my my local elections. I can’t do a great many things, but I can go to church and alongside the faithful, intercede for holy justice and peace.
Embracing our limitations doesn’t mean succumbing to despair and hopeless resignation. Embracing our limitations means drawing our energy into our realm of influence and showing up in that small circle of possibility with as much steadiness, faith and generosity as we can muster.
Embracing our limits is a spiritual formation practice because it exposes the rough edges of our inner lives and invites us into the lowliness of humility.
It is not the sexy work of slow living. It is the grueling work of shedding our pride, of saying, “I don’t know;” of confessing, “I might be wrong about that;” of admitting, “I need help to make my way through this.”
Embracing our limits is the beginning of true community. It’s the work of knowing where we end and others begin.2
The past month or so has been full of shedding. I wrote about this last week. The letting go and the realization that I can’t do it all has come with some fear and disappointment. What if I made a mistake? What if that no has unintended consequences? Am I saying yes to the right things? Who am I?! There’s been so much uncertainty.
But I step outside, feel the earth beneath my feet, welcome the cool breeze on my skin and I’m reminded that being rooted right here, tending to this one place really well, and being fully present within the limits of my one life—the beauty and terror3 and all of it—is more than enough. Today, for now, it’s enough.
May you go slowly in the days to come. Be well, friends.
Upcoming Events
I’m hosting two contemplative community events before the end of the year. These are opportunities for you to prayerfully reflect on your life and experience of the holy.
On November 27th, the event is a contemplative writing circle. We anchor our time in a poem or a reading, and then I guide the group through journaling prompts. This space is great for people who want to nurture a creative prayer practice. It’s also great for people who want to increase their self-awareness.
On December 28th, I’m hosting Wins, Wounds & Wonder which is an opportunity to reflect on the entirety of 2023. This is for people who want to not only process what they experienced in 2023, but who want to set intentions & goals for 2024 from a place of prayerful awareness of how the Divine has been at work in their lives.
You can register for both events at the links below.
This is most likely drawn from Wendell Berry’s essay, Hell Hath No Limits, though I’m not sure.
Echoing back to Prentis Hemphill’s quote, “Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”
Go to the Limits of Your Longing, Rilke
Oh my...how beautiful and apt is this?! Thank you, Bethaney, for such timely wisdom. As humans, we exist in such a difficult balance; and I think a key part of it involves learning to accept the limitations that we cannot affect, and working peacefully within them. The "serenity prayer" really speaks volumes about our condition, and the peace we could have if we could really embrace it.
Beautifully said, Bethaney. This came exactly when I needed it. Thank you.