We can Compartmentalize Life's Problems

The State Journal

July14, 2006

 

Compartmentalize your life. Leave home at home and work at work for a healthier you.

 

I invented mailboxing many years ago when heading out the door to work on morning, leaving a toddler with strep throat behind in the care of a babysitter.

 

Chronically stressed from an ugly divorce, I sat beside my mailbox sobbing. I was leaving with a high level of anxiety because of many circumstances. Adding an ear infection to the strep throat was just the one additional stress that caused the meltdown. After several minutes I thought, "You know, I am going to put Mathew in this mailbox," Obviously, I didn't mean physically. I meant emotionally. I stood up, pulled down the mailbox door and proclaimed aloud, "There goes Matthew."

 

Now, I know, you know and the world knows that Matthew's mother was the best person to give him the antibiotic prescribed by his pediatrician, but on that day it just wasn't going to happen. I was going to put him in the mailbox. The babysitter would the right not to worry.

 

Then I started thinking about how difficult it was to won my home and be divorced and in business, with bank loans and all the other things that weighted on my mind at night when I was exhausted.

 

I told myself, "It's difficult to carry the divorce to work each day. I am not going to go to work and waste my energy talking about it. I'm going to take a vacation from it."

 

And just like that, I stuck divorce in the mailbox.

 

On the way to work, I focused on just what I could accomplish that day with the time I had at work. When I arrived at my office, I picked up the phone and called my babysitter. I told her that from that day forward, I would not be calling three times a day to check on Matt. In fact, I would not be calling at all, and if my staff told me my babysitter was on the phone, I would know to head straight for the car and rush home because it was an emergency. I explained that I had to be able to focus on work while at work and on home while at home. I was going to separate the two so completely that I would be a different person at each place.

 

In an effort to control life, and not let life control me, I telephoned family members - people who often called to schedule lunch dates or just chat - and told them the same thing. I decided to make my business the very best temporary service in existence. I got married to my career that day and vowed to stop jumping back and forth between professional and personal issues. I name this process "mailboxing."

 

When I arrived home that evening, I opened the mailbox and I took out matthew, the antibiotic and the strep throat. I took out the babysitter, the divorce and the bills. They didn't look as bad as they had that morning when I had put them in the mailbox. In fact, they looked a great deal more manageable.

 

I still mailbox more than 20 years later. I know in my mind and heart that we deserve breaks from different parts of our lives. When we take breaks, our shoulders don't feel so burdened and weighted down, and we deal more effectively with people. It's like taking a mini-vacation. WHen you go on vacation, you come back refreshed, often with many new ideas. Things look better than they did when you left.

 

I made other deposits in the mailbox. Some evening it was the banker with whom I had trouble getting an increased line of credit because I was young and female. I looked like an adolescent driving a 1963 Volkswagen with busted out floorboards, and the bank didn't think much of my collateral.

 

The mailbox also got all of my unsatisfied clients and a slew of petty office arguments, employee reprimands and sad-luck stories. I stopped at the mailbox twice a day, every day - going and coming.

 

One of the things we tend to do, if we're not careful, is short-change the people we love. We don't hug or kiss them. In our preoccupation, we don't give them very much of anything. Mentally and emotionally, we already are at the office when we should be focusing on the family. Without positive attention, relationships deteriorate and become dysfunctional.

 

Mailboxing not only helps us foster relationships with our loved ones at home, it also leaves room for our careers to flourish. By focusing on the task at hand, we are able to produce a better product.