Life is a Four Burner Stove
I recently heard that a good way to look at your life is as if it were a four burner stove where each burner represents one facet of your life.
Family
Friends
Work
Health
The theory is that in order to keep life manageable, you need to turn off one burner…ideally, two.
I know that I am incapable of completely turning off any of the burners. Each of the four parts of life are too important to me.
But I can turn them down or up as needed.
During the past year of COVID isolation and turmoil, I have adjusted the knobs very distinctly.
My family burner is turned all the way up. I need to keep them safe, happy, and educated. I see them 24/7 and they have literally become my entire world. My family burner is on high and will never go below high even in the best of times. It’s my favorite burner. This is the one that creates the most joy and the most memories. I keep it on high and well maintained.
The work burner has also been turned to high over the past year. With the world shutting down around us, I am grateful to have continued working through all of it. Workload has been heavy and the flame has been turned up high…probably too high. It’s time to let things simmer.
The burner that has been turned down to just a flicker is friends. I haven’t been able to spend time with others since March, so that light is just a flicker at this point, but I’m looking forward to the day that I can turn it up to medium.
Health is consistently at medium or higher.
I don’t agree that you need to turn off one or two burners to have a peaceful life.
It’s not all or nothing.
When cooking a several course meal, each dish requires a different level of heat for varying lengths of time. Our lives are the same.
When your children are little, the family burner goes way up and everything else goes to off or very low. When finances are taking a hit, work goes to high and other burners get turned down. When the doctor calls with bad news, the health burner gets turned to high.
Flames can be turned up or down as needed. But they need to be regularly tended to, or you will find yourself undercooked at best and burnt to a crisp at worst.
Adjust as needed.
Photo by KWON JUNHO on Unsplash
