FRI
Something happened today
There were times when I was combining taxi work with deliveries, trying to use the opportunities available to keep money coming in. It made practical sense on paper, but the paper didn’t have to drive the car, deal with delays or recover after a long shift. I was becoming more aware of how easily I could treat my capacity as an unlimited resource simply because the next piece of work was available.
I had been looking for practical ways to keep earning, and the availability of another shift could make it feel almost foolish to decline. The work was there. The need for income was there. Why not accept it? The body, unfortunately, doesn’t calculate capacity by counting opportunities on a screen.
On paper I could arrange the hours for more than one kind of driving work. The arithmetic looked manageable until I remembered that the same body would be doing all of it. The same attention had to navigate traffic, handle delays, speak courteously, make decisions, and recover from frustration. There wasn't a separate supply of patience waiting in the second job.
I didn't want to deny the financial pressures that made extra work attractive. Those were real. But I also wanted to include the human cost in the calculation instead of treating it as an embarrassing footnote. A schedule that fits on paper does not necessarily fit inside a life. I was learning to notice that before exhaustion made the decision for me.
I can make a timetable that gives the same hour to two different kinds of work without noticing that it is asking the same tired person to do both. The numbers may fit. The human experience doesn't necessarily fit. Driving, waiting, dealing with delays, and making decisions all draw on a shared supply of attention.
I was reluctant to give up an earning opportunity simply because I felt tired. Money matters. Yet fatigue has its own costs, and they don't always appear on the schedule I am so pleased to have arranged. I wanted my plans to include the person who had to carry them out.
I sometimes wondered whether a smaller, kinder response was being mistaken for weakness. Surely, if I wanted to be taken seriously, I needed to sound formidable. But whenever I imagined a staff member reading another accusatory message in the middle of a difficult day, I could see how quickly the exchange could become defensive.
I wanted to remain unmistakable about what I was asking for. I could document the facts, say why the result seemed wrong, and request a fair review. I didn’t have to surrender the substance of my concern to protect someone’s dignity. That was the fierce part of kindness: not avoiding the difficult conversation, but refusing to make unnecessary cruelty part of it.
A day could contain enough time for both jobs on paper and still contain too little patience, alertness, or recovery time to do them well. I didn’t want to deny the financial realities that made extra work attractive. I wanted to be honest about the cost. Some days pushing further was a reasonable choice. Other days the better decision might be to leave room for a delay, a meal, a rest, or simply the unexpected. I was learning that a possible task wasn’t automatically an obligation.
I did not want to turn that observation into a grand rule about never pushing myself. Sometimes doing more is necessary. But there is a distinction between a real obligation and the habitual assumption that, because I can possibly do one more thing, I ought to.
