There is only so much room in a cookie jar. Oh sure, you bought macadamia, chocolate chip, peanut butter, oreo, and about fifty other varieties… But there is only so many that you can actually fit inside that cookie jar. The rest will have to wait their turn. Or you end up smooshing all the cookies to crumbly messes as you shove more and more inside.

Just the same, there are only so many hours in the day, and so many things you can focus on at once. The more you cram in, the more you split your thoughts, the worse things become.

And different things will have different weight for each person. Work, children, money stress, people, etc…. We each deal with them differently so we have to weigh them for ourselves and figure out how many we can fit in our lives before we smash the cookies.

For me, people are draining. Don’t get me wrong, I love people, but the more people I talk to in a day the more I want to go home and shut off my brain for a while and not think. This is not good for my writing. I work in a call center, I talk to literally hundreds of people a day, helping with their tech issues, listening to their personal lives, and getting a small glimpse into each person’s world for half an hour at a time.

It’s draining.

So I have had to cut down on contract with people in every other aspect of my life. I don’t go out as much. I don’t listen to as many podcasts, or go to social media as much. I try to guard what energy I have left so that I can keep my creativity.

Balancing a life isn’t easy. But I’d rather not have smashed cookies.