Perception

You can be late and upset, or you can just be late.

I think I read this saying in Janet Luhrs' The Simple Living Guide. It really has helped me a great deal in limiting a portion of the stress in my life. I am often running right on the edge of tardiness, and it used to fluster me so much. I would sit in the car, fuming about the traffic or other drivers, just generally working myself up over something that I had very little control over. Now, I just sit in the car and listen to the radio or watch what's going on.

It was a great realization that I have a choice about whether to be upset or not over the way things are happening. Another trick that helped me with this was to ignore the clock in the car. Watching the time tick away does not get me to my destination any faster, and fretting over it doesn't help much either. I think she suggests to cover the clock up, but I haven't needed to do that.

Just a thought today.