Looking back, 1 = 5 = 4?

In December, we sat around the table for a few days to write a new policy plan for the coming years. (Required by the Dutch tax laws) Part of that job is also looking back at the past years… and then it is quite confronting how much we have been able and allowed to do in that period of time. If you look at our average working day, most people would be shocked by what happens, but for us, it is normal, and we don’t even notice it anymore.

Until you consciously think about it for a moment… what has happened, and what is on the agenda for the coming period? A bizarre amount, to be honest.

We sometimes say that we get five years older for every year we do this work. And that may sound funny, but we really feel it that way. On the other hand, if you look at what we do in one year, it is also an amount that can easily fill five years. So the input and output are correct when you put them next to each other, beautiful! But hey… getting 5 years older in one year, right? Wow… that does have consequences. And we notice that.

If we look at our budget… from a human point of view it is not even sufficient for one year… let alone the output of five years… so serious money needs to be added every time… and where will that come from?

Another question is: if you generated 5 years of output in 1 year… did you also take 5 times as much rest to keep up? And the answer to that is absolutely no. Our holiday average is many times lower than the average person, the budget for it is also not there, and our leisure activities are also far from normal. If we’re lucky, we have 1 day in a week off. Usually not. If we actually have half a day off per week on average, that’s a lot…

In other words, we pay a hefty price on this side to be able to do this. It is at the expense of our own years of life, we won’t mention pension anymore, finances are and will remain exciting. We pay a bill, physically and mentally. And that is not only negative because we also grow spiritually 5 years in 1 year. And we are very(!) happy with that.

We will try to reduce that 5 years to 4 years in the near future though. This does mean that output will also decrease… but hey, keeping this pace up… without sufficient rest, without sufficient resources, that is not an option. If we do that, we will soon be in the gutter ourselves, and then we will no longer be able to help anyone anymore, and that’s not an option. So, we’re not going to do that. On the other side, if we’re honest, the results that we see per year are worth 10 years…

Choices, choices, life is full of them…