Running on empty

When I was diagnosed with peripheral neuropathy, an arrhythmia and lymphoedema in the space of 7 weeks, I was very definitely running on empty. A very productive few weeks with an excellent counselor demonstrated that I had made running on empty a career choice for decades! It can take a bit of a crisis to make one stop, sit back and think more clearly. I made some good decisions about what I should have been delegating at work all along, doing what I needed in my home life not just thinking about it, changed my job when a good opportunity presented itself and have borne in mind all the good practical tools my counselor gave me ever since. How easy it is to give up things that give you pleasure because you "ought" to be doing something else. It took me a long time to really appreciate something I was told a long time ago - do the things you must, then do the things you want - if you have no time left for the things you ought to do, they weren't that important in the first place.