You always hear the expression, “don’t sweat the small stuff,” and most of the time I am in full agreement. But lately, it seems like the list of aggravating little things is ganging up on me and throwing me off balance. For example, just over the past 48 hours:
• I was awakened at 4:30 am by the chirpy little smoke detector letting me know at regular 30-second intervals that its battery was running low (why does this never happen in the evenings when I’m awake, instead of during the usual 2:00 am to 5:00 am window of time?)
• My back-door neighbors decided to ignore the rules of the homeowner’s association and painted their house, in plain view of the rooms I use the most frequently, a revolting shade of purple
• The weather stripping on the top of my car door pulled away, draping festively down into my peripheral field of vision, which forced me to temporarily secure it with duct tape until I can go and buy some appropriate glue this weekend
• Our grumpiest cat threw up on the keyboard of my recently-purchased laptop computer, causing it to short circuit — now the computer is possessed by random commands, changes in font and view, and rapidly jiggling folders that are impossible to read, not to mention a perverse insistence on sending the people in my address book random emails containing my private information
• And this morning? As I was driving into work, I noticed that the car started pulling to the right during the final leg of my journey — sure enough, the right front tire was going flat but I had no time to fix it before patient care, leaving me stranded.
Am I being secretly filmed for a reality TV program? <Sigh.>
Each item of aggravation by itself is nothing, especially when placed in the context of important events like mourning the recent death of a beloved member of the family, but it’s all starting to wear me down and deepen my misery, making me almost afraid to leave the security of my bed in the mornings. During times like these, I’m really not in the mood to treat patients … but an amazing thing happens when I turn up for work anyway: I start to feel a little bit better.
There’s nothing like focusing on someone else to help take you out of your own head. Sure, I still need to get a new battery for the smoke alarm, plant screening bushes along my back fence, glue the car’s weather stripping back into place, repair or replace my computer, and fix my tire, but none of that stuff is actually all that important, is it?
Take care of the big stuff.
Anne Ahlman, MPT
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