The Forest, U.S. Constitution, and Breathing

I cringe at the thought of posting on the blog for Jasmine. I'm not a writer and I find it hard coming up with things to write. I even got stumped on the title. In college I was the guy who compiled a mass of crumpled wads of paper when trying to write an essay. I'm hoping it gets easier with time, so I can stop cringing when Jasmine bats her eyelashes and asks “Would you help me with a post for tomorrow? It would be a huge help.”

She's stressed and I see it.

“It's the high season and all we see are the trees,” I tell Jasmine as she runs upstairs with a piece of toast in one hand and her laptop in the other. Each year plays out a little differently, but this year we are currently at the peak of our wedding season and Jasmine's To Do list looks like the U.S. Constitution. “You need to slow down take a look at what you've accomplished…look at the forest or else you're going to hyperventilate!” I might sound overdramatic, but when Jasmine feels like something is slipping away from her, she works extra hard to catch up and then wants to run harder so it doesn't happen again. “I just don't know how to say NO,” she replied. And with that, she broke down.

She sat in the stairwell with her toast and her laptop. I remind her, again, to see the forest, not the trees. Don't look at a To Do list in a series of shoots, edits, and uploads. Rather, look at life in relation to our goals and how we're measuring up to our expectations. If we're headed in the trajectory of where we wanted to be at the end of 2010, then we couldn't ask for more.

I took a picture of her To Do lists. Yes, she SAVES them. She makes fun of herself and likes to remember her days of productivity…if it were up to me, I might have crumpled them up like I was writing an essay! 😉