The Juice
This post may be more of a warning to myself than it is helpful to anyone else.
I have always been fascinated with the juice. I am not talking about the stuff that comes out of fruit. I mean the result. The payoff. The thing waiting on the other side of all the work.
When I take on a project, something in me locks onto the outcome. I can become relentless. I will give it my time, my energy, my attention, and sometimes far more of myself than I ever intended. Once I can see the finish line, almost everything becomes about getting there.
A friend used to ask me a question that I did not always appreciate at the time.
“Is the juice worth the squeeze?”
I usually assumed the answer was yes. If the outcome mattered, then whatever it took to reach it must be worth it.
I am no longer so sure.
Some victories cost more than they advertise. The project succeeds, the goal is reached, and the problem is solved. But somewhere along the way, our health suffers, our peace disappears, and the people we love learn to live on whatever is left of us.
We finally hold the cup we wanted, only to realize how much of ourselves we emptied to fill it.
There is nothing wrong with ambition. Meaningful work requires sacrifice. Anything worth building will ask something of us. But wisdom requires us to count the whole cost, including the parts no one else can see.
Jesus asked, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Mark 8:36
The “whole world” may not be wealth, fame, or power. Sometimes it is one deal, one promotion, one deadline, or one more thing we are determined to prove.
The older I get, the more I realize that wisdom is more than knowing how to produce. It is knowing when to stop squeezing.
Before I pour everything into the next big thing, I need to ask what it will cost my faith, my family, my health, and the person I am becoming.
Because if reaching the goal costs me the very life I was working so hard to build, the juice was never worth the squeeze.
If this spoke to you, share it with someone who may need the same reminder.
#FirstLight #TheJuice #Perspective #Wisdom #Faith #Purpose