Sustainability: Suffering

This has become quite a buzzword of late, in discussion of environmentalism, economics, you name it.

In my ongoing endeavor to quantify my emotions and perceived "needs" I was mulling over the idea of sustainability as it relates to suffering.

We've all heard stories of people lifting a car off of a trapped person, or other miraculous and normally impossible feats when emergency need arose. They were able to endure, survive and accomplish something normally impossible - but not for a prolonged period of time. They had to lift it and get the job done in a serious hurry, cause they certainly weren't carrying it around like that while they shop for groceries or try on several pairs of shoes.

But of course we all endure any number of stresses on a daily basis, for years and years. Some of those may make themselves mainstays for the majority of your life.

So different stresses have varying levels of sustainability.

Some are, some simply aren't.

And different people have different levels of strength.

So how do we determine what is sustainable for us?

Some things, like carrying cars, we are physically unable to do for a long time, so clearly it is unsustainable. Other things we may be able do for a long time and still survive, but it would be unhealthy to do them: smoking, doing drugs and eating junk food for physical examples. Many people do one or all of these for years without dying. But that doesn't mean that they are good to do and cultivate in your life.

What about emotional stresses like abusive relationships, energy draining jobs, unhealthy social boundaries, loneliness, etc?

Most of these have a fairly subjective assessment of stress level and are not conveniently quantifiable so as to render the answers clear. Most of the time we decide what we consider sustainable for ourselves and build our own arbitrary boundaries to enforce those decisions. The apparently random times that one person says "I can't ____" and the next person presses through the unthinkable can be befuddling.

Myself and another mom friend of mine (who has also been dealing with health issues) have regularly come to a place of Redefining Can't. It's become a buzz-phrase for us.

9.75 times out of 10, oh yes you can, like it or not!

When you say, "I need a break," from a task, stress, situation, person, you are deciding that boundary. Maybe you could take a lot more. Maybe you think you can't. Usually you can, but should you? I have no idea. Often it seems that break can be life saving. Sometimes pressing through is invaluable for building character. Sometimes pressing through only hurts yourself and others involved. Oh for a clear outline to know when to say when!

I have seen this in other's lives, where a situation in their life that was unsustainable (in the "I can't bear this" sense, not the I-will-die-without-water sense), eventually exploded quite messily, after they had toughed it out for longer than most would expect. In the end, they acted very uncharacteristically to satisfy these felt needs that they had denied for too long, apparently.

I want to avoid this, but I also don't want to be indulgent while using this 'fear' for an excuse.

I want to have healthy sustainable boundaries, that are willing and happily ready to be sacrificial when it is appropriate and right, and doesn't make a martyr of one's self unnecessarily.

God, give light to my path, and give me a good strong fence within to play and live!