Act According to Your Station In Life
I came across this concept in reading some Catholic theology over the past week. I'm not Catholic, so I hadn't heard this put in so many words before. "Act according to your station in life" ... act properly, in order, according to who you are. That seems like a sensible thing to do, when reordering one's life. However, there's a caveat... the first thing you have to do is figure out who you are!
That's where we fall down. Our world is not set up to give us a rightly ordered view of ourselves. Instead of thinking of myself as a respectable matron with a certain set of skills, my mind goes immediately to 1) my to-do list and 2) that I am "only" xyz. I don't think, "I am the homemaker, therefore I have a right responsibility to ensure that my home is made according to my standards". No, I think, "dangit, the kitchen is dirty". The task gets in the way of the station, when it should be the other way around. In fact, I don't even have to do the dishes... I just have to see that they get done, so that my kitchen is ordered according my needs and standards.
Simiarly, I don't think of myself as a writer or content creator, which would mean that if I were acting according to my station in life, I would spend a certain amount of time creating content. I think of myself as someone who writes and who creates content. It's not who I am, it's something I do. And yes, that makes a very large difference in how I behave. Chew on that for yourself, in context of your own identifiers. Perhaps we could start with, "I am a woman" vs. "I do woman-things".
Acting according to one's station in life also includes not overburdening oneself and overscheduling to the eyeballs. While there are seasons in life where there's just too much to do, those seasons are extras, not normative. Ex: I am a matron with a part-time job. Also, my husband is unwell, and I need to care for his needs. The sick husband isn't part of who I am, it's not part of my station. Caring for my husband is part of my proper duties, but it is exceptional that I am doing more than I normally would. We should have our eyes on that "normal", even when life isn't "normal". (That was an example, the hubs is fine).
That's a failing of modernity. We don't look for our normal, we burden ourselves to the eyeballs. Then when exceptional circumstances arise, we don't have the spare time and resources to deal with them, because we're already maxed out on what we've determined is 'normality'. I have done this to myself in any number of life seasons. I have actually had to have a color-coded weekly schedule so I know where I'm supposed to be at any one moment of my day. That's not a good "normal" - because it doesn't allow any flexibility for the inevitable extras that every life includes. And it's not a good representation of my station in life, because the proper order of my existence means that I should have the ability to reach out to others around me.
Another aspect of acting according to our stations is working on the duties we are properly given. What are your priorities? Do those mirror who you are and your proper duties? Or do you get easily distracted and set out on other things? We know that our first duties are to our families, ourselves, and our God. After that, our duties include jobs we have agreed to take on, whether paid or not. Your stage in life and circumstances will determine how many resources you have to deal with matters outside those circles. You might have rather a lot - in which case, those things are yours. You might not. Should you scant your duty to attend to a distraction? We are always on the lookout for something "more", when we might well be satisfied with what is already in our hands.
How could you act according to your station this week?