APX-V-0037
“I protect everyone at work and have nothing left for my own kids.”
You're a shield all day for people who aren't yours and arrive home empty for the ones who are. The strength is real; it's just aimed wrong. The first ones depending on you are at your own table. Work worth doing starts with those immediately dependent on you, and no amount of being the hero elsewhere repays the children who got the leftover version of their father.
Your Practice
- Audit where your protective energy actually goes in a week. Be honest about the imbalance.
- Reclaim a block of your best energy, not the dregs, for your own household.
- Set a boundary at work that protects your home. The people there will adapt; your kids won't get this year back.
- Be fully present in the home hours, not physically there and mentally still at the office.
The Architects
“The most important thing I've accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, 'Do you think we can do this?' I say, 'Try it.' And I back 'em up.”
Grace Hopper, Interview in Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Have Shaped Our Times by Lynn Gilbert and Gaylen Moore (1981; reissued 2012 as Particular Passions: Grace Murray Hopper)