How Do You Do It?

As a volunteer, it's a question that I get asked frequently by many who don't understand EMS or the fire service: "How do you do it? How do you manage to commit to that level of volunteering? How do you keep doing it and not burn out?"

And, often, I look at them, and I'm not sure how to respond.

Because, truthfully, I'm not sure how I do it.

I'm not sure how I manage to say that 12 hours on an ambulance every week is more important than my work, my relationship, my friendships.

I'm not sure how I manage to get out of bed in the middle of the night as a duty officer and leave the comforts of my warm bed - the Firefighter, and Annie curled peacefully in sleep - as I venture out into the unknown.

I'm not sure how I manage to take on the burden of other people's panic and pain, yet not make it my own.

I'm not sure how I manage to walk off a scene where the unspeakable and unimaginable has occurred, and then reintegrate into civilian life less than hours later looking and sounding little worse for the wear.

And if I do manage to do it - I'm not sure I do it particularly well or with grace.

Volunteering in EMS and the fire service is not easy. It is not for the faint of heart. It's not for those that yearn for a life of comfort and ease.

All I know is that when my shift comes round, my pager goes off, and the chaos of the world beckons is that I *do* it. There's no thought as to how, just that it needs to be done.

And maybe it's that compulsion - the calling that needs to be explained. The why - not the how.

So for those of you who are reading this and understand the calling - what's your reason? Why do you do it? Because, really, I don't think any of us could explain the how without explaining the why. I know I can't.

Balance

Recently, I was discussing with some friends (both early on in their careers and those who already mid-career and highly successful individuals) how when creating our daily to-do lists we add tasks that we've either already completed or are incredibly simple to check off as a way of motivating ourselves to tackle the harder and more complicated tasks that are also on the list. It's a mind game we play with ourselves to try and overcome the exhaustion and overwhelming feeling that we are taking on more and trying to do more than is reasonable in a given day.

It was several hours after that particular conversation, one in which we lightheartedly joked around and shared our favorite "layup tasks" (Read: finish your third cup of coffee - CHECK!), that I realized just how disturbing our conversation actually was.

The issue at the core of our banter was balance. Balance in work lives, family lives, volunteer lives, and our relationships with our significant others. We were a relatively high-functioning group of people, and yet we had resorted to creating non-sense or rote tasks out of our daily routines just to try and  BALANCE out the far more challenging things that we actually needed to devote our smarts, talents and efforts towards. Which allowed me to draw the conclusion that balance, in the crazy, modern, fast-paced world we live in, is something that is elusive to many. For a long time, I would have included myself in the count of those who balance eludes. But a couple of things have changed.

For one, I learned to say no. Which is harder than you may think. There were so many things I was being asked to do that, in reality, anyone could have done. I used to take what should have been shared responsibility and personalized it as my own. And so I learned to say no. I would ask myself - "Is there someone else who is equally capable and willing?" and if the answer was "yes", I would pass that task to them. To hold others accountable for their share. And once I figured that out, I was amazed by the amount of time and energy and mental acuity that I had to devote to projects and ideas and people that were uniquely mine. 

Secondly, I got a dog. True enough, a dog probably isn't the solution to everyone's problems with balance. But let me tell you what a dog did do for me: it forced me to stop and take a break and rejuvenate my mind

 - think about something else or think about something from a different perspective; it forced me to get outside and take inspiration from the world around me; it forced me to meet new people and learn about new things. It forced me to prioritize my personal life and my own well-being.

Finally, I tried to infuse love into everything I do. If I cannot love something deeply and truly and meaningfully, then it is something that actively works against my well-being - in both my work life and personal life. In the end, it was a choice to prioritize myself; a choice to prioritize myself in a way that augments my personal, work, volunteer and relationship goals.

So do I still sometimes add that third cup of coffee to my to-do list? Absolutely, but this time when I add it, it's so I can sit outside in the yard and enjoy my coffee and reflect while Annie (my dog) toodles around and plays, and I come back to the next task better than I was before.

And that, right there, is the art of balance.