I have spent most of my life worrying about things that never happened. Mark Twain
This morning, before going on my coffee run, I noticed that there were two NY Times newspapers in the driveway. When my husband mentioned that the papers had arrived I looked outside and, after noting the color of the two bags I was immediately annoyed. I had placed a vacation stop the week before but now it seemed instead of crediting my account for the missed paper, they had simply held it to be delivered when I resumed normal delivery of the paper. I had been busy before my planned trip but had made sure to take the time to register the vacation stop.
My annoyance grew as I thought about what poor customer service I had received. You tell the newspaper folks what you want done, make a routine request and still they fail to handle your request appropriately. Now I was faced with sending an email about the two papers to make sure I wasn’t charged for two papers instead of one. After thinking about it I decided to just let it go, since my day was busy, and I didn’t have time to deal with the additional paper.
Later, when I was perched on my sofa and actually opened the bags I discovered that there was only one paper. However, it was separated into two bags. Had I taken the time to open the bags earlier I would have avoided being annoyed during much of my morning. I made an assumption based on what I thought had occurred. It was inconceivable to me that I could be wrong. How many times do I do that as I move throughout my day? Or how many times do you do that? How many times do you get annoyed at something when, had you taken the time to look into the matter, there was no real cause for being annoyed? You simply didn’t have the correct information. You made a wrong conclusion based on wrong information considered in your analysis.
How many times have you worried about something only to learn that what you feared would happen, in fact did not? All that angst and wasted energy. Worry and annoyance are indicators of stress. We all know what stress does to our physical health, not to mention the toll it takes on our relationships. I keep saying I am going to work on this and I still haven’t mastered it yet. And the years go ticking by. But, while I really do resolve to do better, I also am reminded not to worry about it.
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