Flickr: programwitch
Originally posted over at Every Other Thursday
Those that know me will tell you that I rarely stress over anything and live by a saying of, “you can control only what you can control.” To me it’s really that simple.
As a parent, you’ll eventually experience a severe breakdown by one of your kids. For the most part, these breakdowns are caused by a number of things. One could be that they are extremely tired. A second reason could be their eagerness to get a new toy, which you promptly gave the Heisman to.
I liken these break downs to the days where nothing goes right and you’re a hair line away from snapping. You know what I’m talking about. You day goes like this:
- Wake up at 5am and get ready for work.
- Head out to bus stop only to find that you missed it and the next one won’t come for another half hour. Unless, of course, you drive and you think you’re headed in early, but end up in an hour+ of traffic.
- Get to work, only to find that you have a voice mail waiting for you from a client that’s pissed about something and you missed it because you left a minute before the call came in.
- Your to do list is a mile long but throughout the day, you’re thrown a bunch of curve balls and you never get anything done on that list. All you accomplish is helping others cross things off their list.
- The work is flooding in and by the time you think you want to get something to eat, it’s about 3pm and you’re looking at another three hours before you head up. You say screw it and ride it out, feasting on free soup crackers, diet coke and maybe a blast of coffee.
- Just when you think you’re all set for the day and you’re going to get out at a decent time, you’re hit with a last minute request that can’t wait until tomorrow.
- Finally, you head out and get to the train station, only to find out there are 20+ minute delays OR traffic is so backed up that you’d get home faster by walking.
- By the time you get to your front door, you’re ready to shoot someone.
- You open the door and everything changes.
I end the list there because when you open the door, everything does change for the better. Your kids see you and all of a sudden you’re Elvis.
“DAAAADDDYYYY” they scream. All of a sudden, you’ve forgotten about the bad traffic, the to-do list and everything else from your crappy day.
The next day, the alarm goes off at the same time and you do it all over again. However, the prize at the end of the rat race is well worth it.
What’s your stress reliever?