Have you ever been caught naked in the middle of an emergency? Yea, I said that right. Have you ever been caught naked when something went wrong. This happened to me recently, one evening. I was preparing for bed and about to jump in the shower real quick. I had the shower water warming up and the fan and heater on in the bathroom so I couldn't hear a whole lot going on outside the bathroom, but all of a sudden I could hear something. I was hearing a faint noise and then I could hear Kara's (my wife) voice in an absolute panic. She started yelling "RYAN! RYAN! RYAN! When I hear her yell my name like that with that tone I know something is wrong. I opened up the door to the bathroom and was all of a sudden flooded with the deafening sound of our house alarm going off. When we go to bed we set our alarm to "Instant" meaning that it will instantly go off if a door is opened or a window broken. I'm fully aware of this as I hear the alarm screaming. I had enough thought to grab a shirt before running out of the bathroom, but not enough to put it on. I was completely naked as I was about to take a shower. I ran out of the bathroom holding the shirt to cover myself only. I then opened our bedroom door running out into the house, cautiously ready to defend my home and to determine what or whom had set off the alarm. I was caught naked in the middle of an emergency.
Thankfully everything in our home was ok and there were no intruders. Kara, uses a balloon for some exercises she does before going to bed at night. The balloon had popped as she was airing it up and the alarm had assumed the pop as "glass breakage" and therefore went off. We were both ok along with our three kitties.
After calming down a bit, I started thinking about this situation and how I was not prepared if this was truly an emergency. I then began thinking about how many things I haven't been prepared for in my life. In the middle of the emergency there wasn't much else I could have done, but if I would have prepared for that particular situation I may have been ready for a few different scenarios. There have been seasons of my life that I wasn't prepared for financial emergencies or being able to help someone else in financial distress. There have been seasons that I have run myself ragged on sleep where I didn't have the focus or energy for anything extra that might have come my way. There was a season where I worked myself to death and found myself sitting in front of two doctors and a therapist and I had nothing else to give to anyone else around me. As alarming as this situation was it got my attention and it forced me to consider what these emergency situations could be and if I would be prepared for them.
These days Kara and I budget our finances regularly telling our money where we are going to spend it each month instead of just reacting to what might pop up or what we want in the moment. We are prepared for the time the refrigerator may go out, a car repair or the loss of a job. We also are prepared to give to our church or others above and beyond the tithe. We not only budget, but we have fought hard to not go into debt with any of our purchases. It hasn't always been easy, but we have worked at it. We respond, we don't react.
The older I get the more adamant I am to get enough sleep. I have a pretty stressful job at times and there are a lot of people that count on me operating at performing at my best. Because of this I really try to get enough sleep so that I can focus and perform at the highest potential.
I also have a high degree of responsibility and know that no one else is going to care about the things that have been entrusted to me quite to the same level I will. So I work myself hard and sometimes go long stints of time without taking time off or taking a break. Because of this I have the potential to face burn out or extreme fatigue. When exhausted like this my emotional intelligence drops significantly and those that I lead or work with can feel the stress or inability to make decisions. Even though my heart is to make sure things are operating at the highest level, my performance begins affecting everything and everyone else around me.
Moving forward I want to be more prepared for the emergencies that may come my way. Are you with me? Let's respond, not react.
