My husband, who is deeply good and wants to help, used to always ask, “How can I help?” Which made me rageful and made me realize: If you’re asking how you can help, it means you don’t have the ticker. Because I never have to ask what’s on the to-do list; I’m the one spending a hundred hours of invisible labor figuring out the ten steps required before an item even makes it on the to-do list. If you are in the privileged position of just taking items off the to-do list, it means you are not a cocreator, architect, and carrier of the ticker. And you need to be.
