Tag: Stress

Embrace Uncertainty

How do you deal with uncertainty?

We cannot plan for everything. Therefore, we have to accept that life is uncertain.

Last week, I had my Thursday planned. On Wednesday night I ran over a triangular piece of brick while turning into my street. I heard the thud of air escaping. 100 yards farther along the street, as I parked outside my house, I could tell I had a flat tyre. It was dark, and late, and I went to bed.

Thursday morning, I could see that my plans for the day would have to be changed as I went to get the irreparable tyre replaced.

Was there any point in making a fuss? No. I had no choice but to spend the morning changing the wheel and waiting at the repair shop while my tyre was replaced. It wasn’t money I’d planned on spending. But what choice did I have?

So my son and I changed our plans and still enjoyed ourselves. Why?

Because we embraced the change; we embraced the uncertainty; and we got on with life. It was a challenge, but it was also an experience. It gave me the opportunity to show my son how to change a wheel, something I haven’t done since I can’t remember when. Now, although he hasn’t done the full job, he knows how the process works. It was a learning experience for my son, and an opportunity for me to practice equanimity.

We learned, and we enjoyed. No panic, no histrionics. Just enjoy end journey, embracing the uncertainty.

Be Yourself

If you had a time machine and could send just one message to your past self, what would it say?

I would tell myself to be who I am, not what I think others want me to be. Because when you try to be what others want you to be, they’re never satisfied. They won’t like you and you won’t like yourself.

So, cherish the people you’re with, but cherish who you are, too. As long as you’re not harming anyone, just be yourself.

Oh, yes. And stress is very over rated!

Quill, ink, and paper

Which outdated technology do you miss the most, and why?

Okay. I’m not old enough to have used a quill regularly. But there’s something about the idea of slowing down in writing that is missing today.

It’s so easy to fire off e-mails, one after the other, without really thinking about the consequences. In times gone by, if you were angry with someone, you might have to sharpen your quill, dip your ink, and scratch away at the paper before sending your letter to arrive “sometime” in the future. It allowed time to think, “Is this really such an issue?”

There’s also something calming and comforting about the feel of a fountain pen scratching paper fibres as it glides across the page. It’s soothing. And it’s something that’s sadly missing today. Screens with styli come close. But there’s nothing to beat a dip pen, liquid ink, and paper.

In Search of Perfection

What’s something you used to worry about but don’t anymore?

Wanting to be perfect is not a bad thing. It helps us to always strive for improvement. But we still need to remember that we’re not perfect. We are going to get it wrong at times.

I used to worry about this. I wanted everything I did to be perfect, mainly because nothing I did ever seemed to please others. This was coupled with the common fallacy, “Good enough, isn’t (good enough).”

Then I came across two concepts that made me think.

The first was a building drawing for the carpenters. Having gone to great lengths to specify proper dimensions the architect’s drawing pointed to one piece of timber with the dimension, “Fit on site.” The exact dimension was to be adjusted by the carpenter, depending on what had been done previously, because building with bricks and mortar isn’t an exact, or perfect, science.

The second concept was the Pareto principle. 80% of the results come from 20% of the work. It means that we could be spending most of our time achieving very little.

And then it struck me. Just because we like consistency, it isn’t always necessary. Otherwise we would all look and act and speak the same. We would be robots. But what’s attractive about humans is the differences between us. We love those differences. We love not being perfect replicas of each other.

And suddenly, perfection didn’t matter so much any more. As someone pointed out to me, decades ago, a shirt that’s a perfect fit for one person will not fit someone bigger or smaller. Perfection is relative.

And now, I don’t worry about it any more. Yes, my perfectionist tendencies still make me feel bad, sometimes, especially in the face of negative criticism. But I’ve learned to take a step back and challenge my perfectionism. And it doesn’t worry me so much anymore.

Never Be Anxious

What’s a quote that perfectly describes your outlook on life?

Never be anxious about the next day, for the next day will have its own anxieties. Each day has enough of its own troubles.

It’s not always easy to live by this principle, but it gets me through most days.