Expendable

aka… Drop Everything!

We’ve heard the statement so many times before. “Drop EVERYTHING” – sometimes in commercials for a really good sale. Sometimes from the lips of friends who did it to get to some exclusive event. Sometimes from people who’ve gone through life’s changes and needed to focus on one thing – school, work, a new baby, a new lover… When someone comes to you and says

DROP EVERYTHING!!

What is your everything? What’s expendable? What would you put on the back burner in lieu of the urgent thing that has come across your path? What’s reasonable to ignore and what would still demand your attention despite your urgency? Your job? Your friends? Your marriage? Your children? Your bills? Your organizational responsibilities? What is “everything” to you that something else can usurp?

Recently, I’ve been examining what different folks view as being expendable in OTHER people’s lives. For instance… in a candid conversation with my Godmother, my mom actually admitted that she thought one of us (my brother or myself) would quit our jobs and come be with her 24/7 while she’s in the nursing facility. Although she later rescinded that as being irrational… the thought crossed her mind that our everything else was less important than her needs. She was even convinced that if my dad was still alive… he might have dropped his everything to be with her. In this instance, I’m grateful that he passed before her so that she would not have to be proven wrong. Of that? I’m positive.

It’s an important question to ask yourself. What in your life can take a back seat should something “more important” come up. I put that in quotes because urgency and importance are fleeting. One day important… next day… back of mind.

My EVERYTHING is exempt of my immediate family, my marriage and my job. I need them all. One to pay for bills and sustain what little lifestyle I have… and the others… well… because I love him and need him and made a promise to him. And I do so try to be a woman of my word. And my family… well.. to me? that’s’ a given. No replacing them. Sadly enough given the events of the last few weeks… I realize that I’m NOT exempt from his everything and could be indeed… expendable.

The first time I heard that word was at a job training. They explained to us that the way to NOT get fired… is to make yourself invaluable. Do something for the company that they feel could not be duplicated by someone else. That way? They have to keep you indefinitely.

I am desperately looking for that trait…

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