What is the rudest question you can ask a woman? “How old are you?” “What do you weigh?” … No, the worst question is “How do you juggle it all?”
– Tina Fey, Bossypants

It’s about this time of year that we emerge from the haze of summer to step into the routines of the academic year—which, as the kids age up, involves the increasing complexity of managing their individual social and extracurricular activities. We’re doing the usual figuring out childcare for back-to-school nights and coordinating the new assortment of pick-up and drop-off times for school and swim. But as the kids start spending more time with friends, we’re also arranging various playdates, approving outings, generally keeping tabs on four separate calendars. Not to mention our own.

In other words, we’re playing schedule tetris. Can my husband make this talk to incoming medical students, if he does the first three swim runs and I do the last two? Can we drop off one kid at a friend’s house on the way to supervising another kid’s playdate? The pieces are descending, each in their own configuration, and in the space before they fall, we’re jostling to make them all fit.

I was on a walk with a friend last week, sharing our difficulties finding a youth group for one of our kids, who swims over two hours a night, Monday through Friday. Most youth groups meet on weekday nights, but I had finally found one that gathered on Sunday afternoons, only to find they were shifting to an earlier time that would conflict with our own church services. I was now looking at another group that meets on Saturdays, but it was farther away. My friend finally turned to me and said, “sounds like you’re trying to make everything fit. But what’s the point of having priorities if you’re not willing to make something a big rock?”

She was referring to the illustration where different sized rocks, gravel, sand and water are set next to a container, and used to demonstrate the physical fact that you can only fit all of it in if you put the biggest rocks in first, followed by the smaller rocks, and finally the gravel, sand, and water. The order is what matters. Your most important priorities are your big rocks: you identify them so you can put them in first.

This illustration assumes that we have limits. We decide that the way to live with wisdom and purpose is to prioritize by proactively asking: what is most important? Not—what is most urgent, what do other people do, what does everyone want, what is easiest—but what is most important to what I believe life, parenting, vocation, is all about? If we don’t do this, it’s all too easy to begin thinking we can have it all. Instead of prioritizing, we strategize and optimize. We juggle, trying to keep as many things going simultaneously as we can. We play schedule tetris. But in this way, we end up losing sight of the most important things.

Sometimes, the point of logistical conflict is not to compromise or optimize, but to sacrifice. To make a call. We live in a society that’s all about activity and image, ideally together: doing as much as we can while looking like we’re succeeding at all of it. We’ve lost the language of sacrifice and commitment; we’ve lost depth and rest and the cultivation of lesser-seen things. At least I sense this in myself, the constant lure to juggle and jostle the incoming demands of life, to look like we’re pulling it all off, rather than ask myself whether I’m willing to give some things up for the things I believe are truly important. As David Brooks writes, “If you aren’t saying a permanent no to anything, giving anything up, then you probably aren’t diving into anything fully. A life of commitment means saying a thousand noes for the sake of a few precious yeses.”

So maybe my kid skips some swim. Maybe we turn down an appealing invitation. Whatever it is, the things we are willing to say “no” to send as important a message to our kids as what we say “yes” to. Quite often, there may not be a game to be played, but a call to be made.