Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

by Richard Carlson

The next time you’re feeling bad, rather than fight it, try to relax.

Become a Less Aggressive Driver

when you are aggressive, you put yourself and everyone around you in extreme danger. Second, driving aggressively is extremely stressful.

Finally, you end up saving no time in getting to where you want to go.

When you make the conscious decision to become a less aggressive driver, you begin using your time in the car to relax.

When you ask people (which I have done many times) what it means to relax, most will answer in a way that suggests that relaxing is something you plan to do later—you do it on vacation, in a hammock, when you retire, or when you get everything done.

Most of us postpone relaxation until our “in basket” is empty. Of course it never is.

You can relax now.

relaxation and creativity go hand in hand.

you have a choice in how you respond to life.

Many people live as if life were a melodrama—”an extravagantly theatrical play in which action and plot predominate.”

I say to myself something like, “Here I go again. My soap opera is starting.”

The next time you feel stressed out, experiment with this strategy—remind yourself that life isn’t an emergency

We form opinions and then spend our entire lifetimes validating what we believe to be true. This rigidity is sad, because there is so much we can learn from points of view that are different from our own.

It's best to go to the source of the opposing viewpoint, if possible, and ask questions. Or find someone who has asked these questions of them.

A closed mind is always fighting to keep everything else at arm’s length.

making a gentle effort to read articles and/or books with different points of view. You don’t need to change your core beliefs or your deepest held positions.

Do One Thing at a Time

we’re speaking to someone and our mind is somewhere else, or when we’re doing three or four chores all at the same time. When you do too many things at once, it’s impossible to be present-moment oriented. Thus, you not only lose out on much of the potential enjoyment of what you are doing, but you also become far less focused and effective.

Be present in what you are doing. Concentrate.

How nice it would be if we too could be calm and serene in the midst of chaos—in the eye of the storm.

You can commit to being the one person in the room who is going to be an example of peace.

grief. If you start slowly, have some success, and keep practicing, pretty soon you’ll know how to live in the eye of the storm.

inflexibility creates an enormous amount of inner stress and is often irritating and insensitive to other people.

Clearly, to become a more peaceful person, you must prioritize being flexible over rigidity most of the time (obviously there will be exceptions). I’ve also found it helpful to expect that a certain percentage of plans will change.

I’ve learned to trust that I will keep my deadlines, achieve most of my goals, and honor my responsibilities despite the fact that I may have to alter my plans slightly

It doesn’t seem to make any difference how much we have; we just keep expanding our list of desires, which guarantees we will remain dissatisfied. The mind-set that says “I’ll be happy when this desire is fulfilled” is the same mind-set that will repeat itself once that desire is met.

Happiness can’t be found when we are yearning for new desires.

Make a note to yourself to start thinking more about what you have than what you want. If you do, your life will start appearing much better than before.

learning to take your negative thoughts less seriously, is infinitely more effective in terms of learning to be more peaceful. When you have a thought—any thought—that’s all it is, a thought! It can’t hurt you without your consent.

This is another Buddhist concept. Identifying with your thoughts. Not recognizing that it is your thoughts, more than the current circumstances that make us suffer. Believing that we are our thoughts, instead of the fact that thoughts simply appear and unravel on their own. Thinking, looking for threats and opportunites, is what the brain is designed to do. But it doesn't make us happy.

but in this present moment, you have a choice of which thoughts to pay attention to.

An argument that happened while you were walking out the door on your way to work is no longer an actual argument, it’s a thought in your mind.

often the people closest to us know us the best. They are sometimes able to see ways in which we are acting in a self-defeating manner

Sadly, many of us continually postpone our happiness—indefinitely. It’s not that we consciously set out to do so, but that we keep convincing ourselves, “Someday I’ll be happy.”

The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now.

Remember that You Become What You Practice Most

allowing your thinking to snowball in response to adversity, or acting like life is an emergency, then, unfortunately, your life will be a reflection of this type of practice. You will be frustrated because, in a sense, you have practiced being frustrated.

Only that it’s immensely helpful to become conscious of your own habits, both internal and external. Where is your attention? How do you spend your time?

If you remember that what you practice you will become, you may begin choosing different types of practice.

a quiet mind is the foundation of inner peace. And inner peace translates into outer peace.

the most universally accepted and regularly used technique is meditation.

This stillness can be incorporated into your daily life, making you less reactive and irritable,

As thoughts enter your mind, you gently let them go and bring your attention back to your breath. Do this over and over again.

You will notice that your mind will fill with thoughts the moment you attempt to keep it still. It’s rare for a beginner to be able to focus attention for more than a few seconds.

A few minutes each day will reap tremendous benefits, over time.

I don’t know many people I would consider to be at peace with themselves who haven’t spent at least a little time experimenting with meditation.

On the physical side, yoga strengthens the muscles and the spine, creating flexibility and ease of motion. On the emotional side, yoga is a tremendous stress reducer.

The stretches focus on very specific, usually tight and constricted places—the neck, back, hips, legs, and spine. While you are stretching, you are also concentrating, focusing your attention on what you are doing.

I begin my day by asking myself the question, “How can I be of service?”

Instead, a life of service is a lifelong process, a way of thinking about life.

I also know that as I have attempted to integrate service into my life, I have felt better and better about the way I choose to live. There is an ancient saying, “Giving is its own reward.”