The Hazards of an Over-Taxed Brain

Hi, friends!First and foremost, a message for any Syracuse and Syracuse-adjacent readers out there: I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Liverpool/Clay (which somehow exists in two municipalities simultaneously) this Sunday, May 6th, from 1pm to 3pm. Here’s the event info on my Facebook page. It’s technically a book-signing, so I’ll be writing li’l notes in newly bought copies of Is This Working?, but I’m also going to be doing resume/cover letter reviews and offering on-the-spot advice and career counseling. I’ve helped a LOT of folks with their job-search materials over the years—in many ways, it’s an extension of what I do professionally—so if you bring yours in, I guarantee I can make ’em better. Tell your friends, come say hi, et cetera. And if you don’t live anywhere near Central NY, well, fortunately we’re done with this part of the letter.Now it’s time for me to link to my latest column, which manages to touch on a lot of themes that are important to me. It’s about the fallacy of “complete recovery” (from an illness or any kind of trauma), establishing boundaries with someone whose involvement in your life is harmful, the need to acknowledge your own limitations, and the importance of forgiving yourself for having limitations at all.Coincidentally, it's also about how pushing yourself too hard can lead to serious mistakes, which is a lesson I inadvertently taught myself last Friday. I was in Chicago for work yet again, and had scheduled a brutally busy week—18 meetings in three days (it would’ve been 19 but one got canceled), and a handful of social outings on top of that. I was also sleep-deprived, because that’s my default state when I’m traveling alone, and all of this combined into a brain-drain so profound that I booked my airport ride for…an hour and a half before my departure time. It takes approximately an hour to get from my office to the airport on a good day, so if you’re making the 😬 emoji face as you do the math on that, you are having the correct reaction.I can’t even explain what my thought process was when I ordered my Lyft—even my generally terrible math skills can usually handle “an hour before takeoff, plus an hour to get there”—and I’m even more baffled that I didn’t realize what I’d done until I was headed out to the car. As we say in my household, “it was a whuups.”And it became an even bigger whuups when, after the inevitable missing of my flight, I learned that the next plane headed to Syracuse (and also the last of the day) was completely booked. I could’ve tried to fly standby, but I was worried I’d end up having to stay in Chicago overnight and get home who-knows-when the next day. So instead I opted to fly in to Albany—snagging the last available seat—and immediately was awash with relief that I somehow managed to avoid getting hit with any fees for this impromptu change in travel plans. I’d even get the chance to finish up some work while I bummed around the airport for the next three hours!Of course, while this saga played itself out, Doug was teaching a class and totally unaware of my white-knuckle airport ride and encounter with an angelically kind United rep. My high of “I figured out a solution!” quickly dissipated as I explained to my very surprised spouse that he needed to pack a bag and make the two-hour drive to Albany—which, considering the length of his commute and the speed of air travel, meant he basically needed to get on that right away. Around the same time I realized that he’d have to pack for me, which given the general state of “I know where everything is” disorganization in which I keep my wardrobe, would be…challenging. And I wasn’t exactly in a position to dictate a specific list of clothing items—even if I hadn’t been asking for a MASSIVE favor, there wasn’t time for meticulous outfit assembly.He did good, though. There was a bit of a Chopped-box quality to the suitcase, but more like Chopped Junior—think “bacon, rice noodles, asparagus” vs. “squid, Froot Loops, and a can of paint” or any of the other sadistic ingredients they’ve given their poor contestants. We ended up making a two-night trip out of it (we’d actually been thinking of going to Albany on Saturday anyway, which contributed to my feeling of triumph after the flight rebooking), and ultimately succeeded in turning my screwup into a fun weekend getaway.BUT. It could’ve gone much differently. I could’ve been forced to throw a whole bunch of money at this self-created problem, and it’ll be a while before I stop being annoyed at myself for making such a dopey mistake.Thinking about this incident through the lens of the column I just finished writing, I came up with a theory. Your brain only has so much room for things you have to do. Once it runs out of space, it starts relegating things into the should do slots instead. There’s a natural limit to your bandwidth, but you reach that limit even faster if you miscategorize should-do things as have-to-dos. And if you’re someone who’s ambitious, who takes pride in going above and beyond, who feels a strong sense of responsibility for their own productivity—it’s easy to see everything work-related as a “have-to-do” task.Which is how “leave for the airport at a reasonable hour” gets misfiled in with your shoulds and you end up trying to get from Hyde Park to O’Hare in like 25 minutes. (Chicagoans know how absurd this is. Even if you click that link at 3am, Googlemaps will probably say there’s traffic.)Anyway, the takeaway here is to slow down and make sure you’re focusing on what’s truly important. I had a great week at work in spite of my dwindling cognitive capacity, but I’m going to take it a bit easier for a while until I can trust that my brain is back to full strength.What else? Oh, I published another column at the end of March, about what happens when someone gets under your skin. I’m lucky enough that I don’t have anyone like that in my life right now, but I get where this letter-writer is coming from. Boy, do I. And I bet you do too.Take care of yourselves, avoid frustrating folks to the best of your ability, and remember: airlines actually CANNOT check you in if there’s less than 30 minutes before takeoff. Also remember how time works, always, and that teleportation is not yet a thing. Yours sheepishly,Court, AKA Businesslady NOW, A PHOTO!Before my recent travel fiasco (which, for those following along, is actually the second consecutive work trip that ended with me spending the night in a city I had no intention of flying to), I went to Albuquerque, NM, tagging along while Doug attended a conference. That area has beyootiful sunsets (y’all follow-along-ers also know I love sunsets), and if you watched Breaking Bad you might recognize the motel as one of their filming locations. We just stumbled on it during a walk! Which was pretty neat. (The guy in the parking lot is Doug, blissfully unaware that in a month he'd be forced to scramble out to Albany.)

And while I’m talking about Albuquerque and the BrBa universe, I'm compelled to mention how much I adore the prequel series Better Call Saul. To tie this tangent together with everything above, this past season offered a VERY vivid example of the consequences of working yourself too hard—if you watch it, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Overall that show offers one of the best portrayals of a smart, professional woman that I’ve ever seen in the character of badass lawyer Kim Wexler. I even snuck one of her lines into my book (and while you shouldn’t click this if you want to avoid spoilers, confidential to fellow fans—I’m gratified that Rhea Seehorn liked it too).