No, You Can’t Have It All

…and that’s a good thing.

Image generated with AI using ChatGPT.

Hi. The thing I’ve been banging my spoon on my highchair about for a couple years is the need to make choices. Everyone has to make choices, of course, but I’m not talking about Wheaties vs. Little Chocolate Donuts for breakfast. I’m talking about the need to return to the normal expectation that we cannot have or do everything we’d like to have or do. We’ve told little Johnny and Janey a tall tale when we said they could have it all. No. You can’t have it all. And that’s a good thing.

I’ve been watching not just adults, but teens and children suffering from anxiety when faced with a simple idea: you can have (or do) x or y, but not both; both are great, but you must pick one. And our grown-ups are teaching our kids that it’s better to run ourselves ragged trying to get both than to thrive with one. They feel like they must have, do, or experience it all in order to have a successful and happy life. It’s not true.

Just stick with me here.

Listen, this is a short post. I’m not going to get into all the particular cases we can think of, and I’m not suggesting that kids and adults shouldn’t aim for a well-rounded life. I’m just going to leave you with the point to mull over.

Everyone has a different tolerance for busyness, but this isn’t about how busy we are. Really, this is about living with limitations. Once upon a time, I had a supervisor who said, “You can have anything you want. But you can’t have everything you want.” Accurate. Living with limitations can be frustrating indeed, but in most cases, it is a fact of life that should not cause anxiety. What if at least a portion of this anxiety was just a refusal to choose? You can’t have it all, and at this point I’ll add that you can’t please everybody, either.

If you live in the good ol’ U.S. of A., congratulations! You won the lottery. We have options, lots of them. You can pick your schools, your sports, your specialty food (all kinds of “junk” and “health” varieties), jobs, spouses, vacation spots, and even the number and timing of children. We’re blessed. Options are good. Variety is great! And we want it all: all the people, activities, experiences, information, leisure, and entertainment. But the truth remains. We are not unlimited.

OK, here’s the good part.

Humans are limited in time and space. In other words, since we’re not God, we can’t be in two different places at the same time. We certainly can’t give our full attention to multiple tasks at the same time. But let’s go further. Do you live under external rules or internal convictions? Those are limitations on the things you can or will do. Have you made commitments to God, others, and yourself? Those are limitations. Have you agreed to financial contracts or other agreements, including debts? Those are limitations. Have you made promises in your job, church, or volunteer group? Those are limitations. This is what I’m saying. Since your choices create limitations, that means your choices matter. And if your choices matter then your life matters. Let’s put it the other way. You could choose to make no commitments to God, your spouse, others, your job, finances, and church. You could live with as few commitments as possible, but would that make your life better, more purposeful, or more enriched? I don’t think so. A life of meaning and purpose starts with the acknowledgment that you can’t have it all. Since you make your own choices, you are uniquely prepared to impact the world, for better or worse.

Each of us is a steward of a special life and a special set of resources that our choices have curated, or I should say, are curating. Acknowledging your limitations is a step toward understanding that you matter more than you thought. If everyone was unlimited, then our choices would not matter because there would be no real consequences. The blessing of your limitations is the impact of what you do with them.

So the next time you can’t do something, just remember this: What you can’t do makes what you can do matter that much more!