A few years ago a book titled, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, was on the best seller lists. The point, of course, is that we shouldn't let little, unimportant matters get in the way of achieving the great things we are all supposed to be striving for. I have a different take on it.
In life, the larger melt-downs, the overwhelming catastrophes, are largely beyond our control. The current stock market collapse? If the Federal Government throwing $700 billion at it not only doesn't reverse the course, it hasn't even slowed it down, what are we going to do about it? For most of us, we can only sit by helplessly and hope and pray that things reverse sometime before we need to retire on the 401k that just lost half it's value.
Unemployed? The only thing you can do is send out hundreds of resumes in a job market that is overflowing with people more qualified than you for every single job.
Cancer? Stroke? Alzheimer's? There is very little that you can do in the short term to stop the relentless course of a whole host of diseases that plague families just like yours and mine every day. The financial burdens are overwhelming, the emotional ones don't bear thinking about.
So again, if I can't change the course of the big stuff, then I reserve the right to sweat every single small thing that comes into range. Because it is the small stuff that we have control over. The small stuff is what we can change, or at least manage, the stuff where we can make a difference.
I was reading the letters to the editor in my local paper yesterday. Out of all the paragraphs dedicated to the election, from all the people trying to persuade us how dangerous the "other" candidate is [have you noticed that none of these people seem to lay out why you should vote for their candidate, only why you should vote against the other one, which leads me to believe that negative campaigning is never going to go away,] was a letter complaining about an incident that happened to her while attending a recent production of "The Lion King." Not the Disney movie, but the hit Broadway production currently on tour, and which has been in Kansas City for the past couple of weeks.
She paid a lot of money for her tickets, I am sure, because those things do not come cheap. But her experience was less than ideal, because in the seat behind her was a mother who had brought her toddler to the production.
This mother proceeded to talk, in a normal speaking volume, about what was happening on stage, rehashing the plot of the story to her child throughout the entire production, thereby disrupting the enjoyment of the everyone around her. Common sense should have dictated to this young mom that if her child can't follow the plot on her own, then she is simply too young to attend, and she should have been left at home with a babysitter and the movie video.
This is a phenomenon I have noticed increasingly to be problematic in public places, this bringing of inappropriately young children to events where they have no business being in attendance. I don't hate children, as you may have noticed from previous posts, I have two of my own. But I do think there is a time and place for them, and it's not at an expensive Broadway touring production if they are under the age of ten and can't shut up. Or if you are over the age of ten and can't shut up, for that matter. It is a small thing, perhaps, in the overall scheme of the world, but the lack of courtesy to others is one of the things that makes me sweat.
I recently learned that there is now "school" for babies, where they go and get exposed to education materials for hours and hours a day, theoretically to allow them to hit the ground running in kindergarten and get ahead of the pack when they try for Harvard or whatever. Am I the only one who still thinks childhood should be for playing, exploring, creative thinking, reading stories with morals instead of financial statements with bottom lines?
This constant emphasis on getting your child ahead cannot be a healthy pursuit for either you or them. And I am here to tell you, if your kid is smart, you really can't mess them up if you try. Trust me. I am experienced at this.
I have a kid with a 190 IQ, and I did everything wrong. He is still smart. No common sense whatsoever, but you can take my word for it, he's smart. Has all the answers. To everything. All the time.
Take a deep breath, relax, and let them enjoy life a little. There is time enough for the job or the mortgage when they are old enough to know that keys are not teething toys. The only thing you should be worrying about right now is whether or not they can follow the rules. If they can't, that is something worth sweating.
When was the last time you got cut off in traffic? Someone pulled out in front of you? And then, worse yet, drove five miles an hour under the speed limit? How about that extra car turning left in front of you, delaying your progress to your destination, and worse yet, risking a crash that could injure others? My all time least favorite move, however, is when people fly past in a construction zone, knowing full well that the lane is going to narrow 20 cars ahead. They just have to get ahead of the people who have, in an orderly, well behaved fashion, gotten into the correct lane as directed. Don't you just want to smack them? Because I do.
I also hate going out into my front yard and finding someone else's dog poo waiting to foul my shoe bottom, or worse yet, my bare foot. I have dogs, it's true, and I would never consider walking around my back yard without looking down the entire time. But I want to be free to walk around my own front yard without shoes, if that's how I'm feeling at that moment.
I dislike calling a business and finding an electronic voice answering the phone. I do not want to push one for English, and I never know the extension. I don't think people should be punished for trying to contact a business. In fact, I think that is part of the problem with business today. Too few people actually willing to serve the public, too many people serving themselves. Could that have something to do with the public scorn for the current bailout proposal?
This is all small stuff, it's true, but it matters to the people who are affected. If you are already late to work, and someone cuts in front of you, it's irritating. If you are already having a problem with something that shouldn't have broken down in the first place, and you cannot reach a live person to help you, of course you will be aggravated and frustrated and annoyed. It is affecting your life, and it shouldn't be.
I am a believer in the idea that God helps those who help themselves. I can't solve the problem of cancer, but I can be sure when I am out in public that I am not disrupting others. I can drive more safely, I can choose not to answer my cell phone in the middle of a crowded restaurant, I can be courteous to the clerk that is having a tough day. I can smile at people for no reason, and I can hold a door open for a mother with a large stroller.
And by the way, what is with the limo sized strollers, anyway? How much stuff does your kid need for the five minutes you are going to be in the post office? I am always sort of fascinated at the sight of these moms with their large SUV's in a parking lot, pulling out the Hummer-sized stroller, the bag big enough to pack the kid into it, twenty other pieces of random paraphernalia, packing up with more stuff than I bring when I'm staying somewhere for a week or two, all for the five minutes they are going to spend in wherever they are going. I wouldn't be surprised to see them pulling out the kitchen sink, because some of these strollers are big enough to hold them.
And then they get inside, and the kid is invariably unhappy to be stuck in the now non-moving vehicle, which ultimately results in a crying kid running wild around the place unsupervised, because mom is caught in traffic and has to stand by the offending wheeled item, anyway. And you just know she is going to go after you if you should be so foolish as to tell her kid to get back to his mother and behave himself. Because the rules of decorum only apply to you, don't you know. Never to them. And definitely not to their hellion kids. I don't get it.
I was never one of those car seat carriers. I lugged my kids around in my arms, and I learned to do everything with one hand, like self-respecting mothers have done for centuries. It is, in fact, possible to use a public restroom holding an infant and never have anything but your own two feet touch the floor. It's not easy, but you can do it with practice. It encouraged me to encourage them to stand on their own two feet, I can tell you that.
My point? I can't change the course of the economy. I have no idea what should be done, and I'll be blunt about it, I don't think anyone does. So I just can't waste my life worrying about that. It's too big for me, and it's out of my hands. I can't find the cure for dread disease, I can't change the course of poverty, or anarchy, in the Third World, I can't even seem to generate money in my own household lately.
But what I can do is focus on the little stuff, the stuff I do have control over, the stuff I can change. In the end, if we all did that, it would make the world a kinder place to live. It would certainly be quieter, anyway. And I could definitely use a little quiet, with a teenaged daughter to sweat about.
