Room to grow

Hi. You know my name; I have a compassion problem. Yes, that sounds all holy and glorious but it actually is a problem. I should probably give it a more horror-inducing name so that you will believe me. Tonight for instance, I, out of compassion for a mother who had worked all day, set the table, got the abendessen ready (dinners here are just open-faced sandwiches), and held the baby so that she could eat. No problem there. Later, I held the then wailing-to-bring-down-the-walls-of-Jericho baby for 15-20 minutes so that dad could put child number two to bed. Again, not a problem. When the father came back down and took the baby, I then proceeded to clean up most of the dinner and only stopped myself from starting to clean the kitchen. This is when it is getting to be a problem. All of those things are good in and of themselves, but when I put them all together on top of the homework, thinking, and reading to which I have dedicated myself, I find that I am wearing myself too thin. So what do I do? I turn to drink. Just kidding. (Sort of; I did have a quarter of a glass of this weird wine stuff) But even wearing myself too thin isn't the complete problem. If I must distill it down to a pithy assertion, I would have to say that it all comes back to my old habit of pleasing people, not because they deserve it, or because I have any objective interest in their approval, but because early in my life I chose the path of insecure servitude. A path which I am constantly trying to swerve from. So what is a poor lassie to do? I suppose I will just try to keep swerving and eventually I will learn to not work myself into the ground unnecessarily. In the meantime, I fully confess that I have a problem and need help (literally and figuratively).