Pact with the devil

For as long as I can remember my mom, a very very active woman, managed to keep a family, a couple of jobs and a household going and running in perfect order. As a child I never felt that she was not around or not giving us her all. She kept a full time job in a government insurance agency and three months a year she worked overtime there too as they made holiday payments. She then came home and looked after the home and the family as well as a sizable piece of land where we produce oranges for commercial purposes. She did all these things with full commitment and although me and my brother were her top priority, she never seemed to juggle. She did seem to be up all the hours God’s given but she never complained for lack of time or being ill or feeling tired. She never took days off and she made everything seem a breeze.

I on the other hand find myself juggling things and feeling like Mephistopheles. With admittedly less responsibilities and commitments than my mom, a pact with the devil for more hours in the day seems to be the only solution if I want to keep up with things to the standard I want to. I do not want to put one thing above the other since all my commitments seem equally important to me. My life, my career, The One, my house, my hobbies and interests.

Talking with friends and colleagues about it I find quite a few of them, mainly women, having the same feelings and thoughts. It is comforting on the one hand as it makes me realize I’m not on my own in this struggle but still it doesn’t give a solution to the problem. Do we take too many things on? Have we learned to give and do less than our mothers did and we find it hard when life becomes demanding? What is the root of the problem? Unless I find the answer to that I don’t know If I’ll be able to find a solution to it.