Keeping Your Plates In the Air

Old-timers among us may remember the Ed Sullivan show.

One act always fascinated me. This man would come on with long poles and lots of plates. He put a plate on top of a skinny pole, and spun the plate. By putting some wrist action on the pole he could keep the plate spinning so fast it would stay in the air. Then he would start another plate, and another.

Eventually the older plates lost their momentum and began to falter. He had to race back to them and add some spin to the pole to get the plate balanced again. He ran all around trying to keep them all in the air.

A lot of people live their lives that way. They go from this to that. They work on this area of their life a little bit and then they stop and work on that area of their life a little bit. All the while, a sense of imminent collapse hangs over them.