Most of us have gone to the Circus and observed a clown performing a juggling act.
Some jugglers can joggle 4 balls. Others juggle 6 balls. Still others can juggle 8 or more balls.
We, as lawyers, also do a form of "juggling." However, instead of juggling balls (although there may be a few skilled jugglers in our ranks who do, in fact, juggle balls], we juggle other things such as - - a case load, time scheduling, meetings, community endeavors, family commitments, personal responsibilities, etc, etc.
One rarely sees (real) professional jugglers drop any of the items they are juggling. Have you ever asked yourself the question why that is?
The answer is quite simple. A professional juggler rarely drops an item (at least, when they are in front of an audience) because THEY KNOW THEIR LIMITS. If they know (from past experience) that they can only juggle 4 balls, they will ONLY JUGGLE 4 BALLS (not 5 balls). If they know that they can only juggle 7 balls, they will only juggle 7 balls (not 8 balls). And so forth.
But, what about us lawyers? Do we know OUR limits? What if we take "one too many" cases? What if we assume too many responsibilities that we cannot possibly undertake? What if we make too many promises that we can never fulfill? Then what?
One would think that we lawyers (with all of our education and training) would be smart enough to know our own "personal limits." But, perhaps, being the type of individuals that we are (having the inclination to be the "perfectionists" that many of us are, and having the drive that many of us have to "do good" - "serve humanity" - "save the world") we may be driven to fail. We may be like that rare juggler who attempts to juggle one too many balls?
Please help the other lawyers reading this blog by sharing your own personal experiences by posting a comment to respond to the following questions:
- Do YOU know when you have reached your limits?
- If so, how do YOU know when you have reached your limits?
- and, what happens to YOU if, and when, you exceed those limits?


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