Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff

by Richard Carlson

The need for perfection and the desire for inner tranquility conflict with each other.

The solution here is to catch yourself when you fall into your habit of insisting that things should be other than they are. Gently remind yourself that life is okay the way it is, right now. In the absence of your judgment, everything would be fine.

Fearful, frantic thinking takes an enormous amount of energy and drains the creativity and motivation from our lives. When you are fearful or frantic, you literally immobilize yourself from your greatest potential, not to mention enjoyment. Any success that you do have is despite your fear, not because of it.

When you have what you want (inner peace), you are less distracted by your wants, needs, desires, and concerns. It’s thus easier to concentrate, focus, achieve your goals, and to give back to others.

Remind yourself (before a conversation begins, if possible) to be patient and wait. Tell yourself to allow the other person to finish speaking before you take your turn.

Being listened to and heard is one of the greatest desires of the human heart. And those who learn to listen are the most loved and respected. Those who are in the habit of correcting others are often resented and avoided.

If you want to be a more peaceful person you must understand that being right is almost never more important than allowing yourself to be happy.

It’s helpful to keep reminding yourself and repeating the sentence, “Life isn’t an emergency.”

The truth is, life is rarely exactly the way we want it to be, and other people often don’t act as we would like them to. Moment to moment, there are aspects of life that we like and others that we don’t. There are always going to be people who disagree with you, people who do things differently, and things that don’t work out. If you fight against this principle of life, you’ll spend most of your life fighting battles.

On the contrary, when you’re in a bad mood, life looks unbearably serious and difficult. You have very little perspective. You take things personally and often misinterpret those around you, as you impute malignant motives into their actions.

The sooner we accept the inevitable dilemma of not being able to win the approval of everyone we meet, the easier our lives will become.