Chasing Inspiration

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Push Me. Pull You.

I don't know how many of you have ever seen the original Dr. Doolittle movie. The 1967 version with Rex Harrison and Samantha Eggar. I used to watch it every time it played on TV. I'm too young to have seen it when it was first released in theaters.

Anyway, there's this animal, that looks like a two-headed llama called a pushmi-pullyu (pronounced "push-me-pull-you"). Strange, strange animal. It was actually an antelope in the books. When it tried to move, each "head" would move in the opposite direction. Which made it very difficult for the animal to move anywhere at all.

Today, I feel like my husband and I are a pushmi-pullyu. I'm a very global person. That's a kind way of saying I get distracted and have a driven need to look at things from a 100,000 miles up instead of down at the detail level. I also tend to multi-task. A lot. My husband is more logical. He does things in a logical and precise order and manner. He's not inflexible. He just doesn't understand that I forgot to charge my PDA, so I'm charging it right now, while I blog, so I can have a charged PDA to go shopping with. I made my grocery list (on my PDA) and I don't want to run out of battery power.

I also pulled together some books to mail out, some books to return to the library, went through a pile of papers for recycling, cleaned out the mystery containers from the fridge and emailed a few friends. So it's not like I'm sitting around just playing on the computer when I should be running errands.

But because I didn't do any of these tasks in a logical manner, he doesn't see what I've accomplished. He sees that on my to-do list I have groceries, library and post office. I said I was going to go run thede errands 20 minutes ago, but here I am on the computer and my errands aren't completed. All one can see is me blogging. But really, I'm waiting for my PDA to sync and charge up enough so I can use it while I'm out.

Pushmi-pullyu. We want to accomplish the same goals - get the chores and errands done before dinner tonight so we can relax. But we're going at it in different ways. And aggravating the heck out of each other in the process. I can choose to get upset, yell, cry, slam the door on my way out. Instead, I'm going to try calm and rational discussion. And to remember that we're trying to get to the same place. And that there's value in seeing how someone else gets to that goal. I'm not always right. Shocking, I know. *grin*

Okay, kids. It's time to push myself out the door. Have a great Easter weekend. I'll talk to y'all next week.

3 comments:

  1. I LOVED watching that movie when I was a kid. Wish my kids could see it - although they don't appreciate Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so I'm not sure they "get" the older movies.

    And I know what you mean about doing things differently. It seems that as much as I can be task oriented, I have a lot of relation oriented in me, too. So when we are supposed to be going somewhere, hubby doesn't understand my need to suddenly call someone up. Or reply to a post on line. He's all about time. I'm all about people. Not that I enjoy being late - I really *try* to be on time. It just doesn't happen very often ^-^

    But I have to admit, I am a detail person and a list person - both of which hubby is not. Makes life interesting, anyway. *smile*

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  2. I love my lists. And so does my boy. Our differences stem from how we work our lists. He goes through his in what appears to be a logical order. I go through mine in groupings that don't always make sense at first glance. And I jump around. Hence the reason the errands weren't finished. But I did manage to get them all done and life was good.

    I'm definately more relational than he is. And I wonder why I'm in a project management role. *sigh* I should be coaching or writing or teaching or all three. In time, my friend. All in good time. :)

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  3. It'll come. I was at McDonald's for a year, and wondered why I was there and couldn't get into what I love to do. But there must've been a reason, even if it was to learn intro-management skills (which I'm not using at the moment *smile*). But nothing is a waste, right? And we're still young!

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