Generally speaking I would describe myself as being pretty particular about things. I like things to be a certain way. That has been a two edged sword for me. At times that has served me well, being a person who does quality work. However, it’s also caused me to focus on things that don’t amount to a hill of beans. In his book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie devotes a chapter to not sweating the small stuff. He titled it, Don’t Let the Beatles Get You Down. That is a reference to small beatles killing a giant tree with their tiny bites.
I could make a very long list of the small stuff in my life that has chewed away at me. I remember going to the Astrodome as a teenager to see the Astros play. I spent most of the game collecting computer punch card ballots for the all-star game and poking out the little holes to vote for my favorite players. I missed seeing most of the game because I was too busy with the ballots. Now I don’t remember a single player for whom I voted.
However, my biggest waste of time has been caring about what other people think. The great Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “It never ceases to amaze me. We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.” So many of the trivial things that consumed my attention had to do with what others would think of the choices I made. A better use of my time would have been working on becoming more comfortable in my own skin. As Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman said in their book The Daily Stoic, “But the more you say not to things that don’t matter the more you can say yes to the things that do.”
What really matters in my life besides my health, is the quality of my relationships. I do my best to focus my energy there. The rest seems to be like a lot of unnecessary noise. Two thousand five hundred years ago the Greek statesman Pericles said, “Come gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles.” Bill Murray summed it up quite well in this scene from the movie Meatballs. “It just doesn’t matter.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSRk_Q7geII
May you have enough today, one moment at a time
THIS HELPED ME 
This is a really good post. I see it as being helpful in my own journey. One of the things I’ve learned from a wise person is that I would do well to see Jesus as an example of how to relate to people who like and love him as well as how he related to people who didn’t like him. If I am going to “not sweat the small stuff” so I have more time and energy for what’s important, this is where I can use my time and energy productively.
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