All or Enough?

"I can bring home the bacon,
Fry it up in a pan,
And never ever let you forget you're the man."



As a child in the 1970s, I wanted to be that woman in the Enjoli commercial when I grew up. She looked fabulous! And why shouldn't I be able to do all the things she boasted of accomplishing?

Now, I don't want to get deep in the weeds of the pros/cons of this philosophy. Some people can pull off having amazing careers, a spotless home, and nurtured relationships simultaneously, with a smile on their faces and without bags under their eyes -- and maybe even singing a song Enjoli-style. But let's just say that I, as an employed, college-educated, young married woman, found that trying to do everything well all the time was exhausting. So what works for me, and many of the women I know these days, is to pick two: career, home, relationships. At any given stage in our lives, we can achieve success and happiness with two of these simultaneously. The third gains prominence as one of the others becomes less significant.

These days, I don't even desire to be the Enjoli woman. I've discovered that being everything to everyone all the time ends up leaving me out. It's tiring. And doing it all now doesn't leave anything to strive for.

I find it similar to the time-quality-cost project management triangle: For any given project, trade-offs must be made. Typically, only two of the primary goals are achievable. The manager decides which of the two are most important for the given project, and focuses on delivering those successfully.

Compromise is the theme, then.

In compromising, my presumption is neither that I'll get everything I want, nor that I'll forsake everything that's truly important to me, all at once. But I'll have most of what I need to be happy or to get the job done. And I presume that, as the situation changes, a new compromise can be made.

It has become clear to me that some type of compromise will need to be made in my latest car search. {Don't worry: I know it's getting to be an old topic, so no more talk of the car after today!} Power, performance, roominess, overall size, comfort, fuel consumption, emissions, luxury... all are important considerations to me, but it appears that finding one hunk of metal that meets all of these ideals at once will be a challenge. I may need to compromise a little roominess for fuel consumption; or power for comfort; or luxury for performance.

I know I'll keep enough of what's most important to me in the car I choose. And for the rest? Well, I'll do it all over again in a few years. I'll get to them next time around.