A Little Monday Motivation

I'm a worrier. It's just in my nature to worry about things before they need worrying about, to worry while they're happening, and to worry about them long after the need to worry is gone.

It's something I'm always working on, and I am getting better with age, as I figure out that I cannot control everything around me, and that I will screw up from time to time, and that's just life. Deal with it.

Every Monday, I get an email from a list I subscribe to called "Monday Motivator." Today's was timely, as I've been trying to keep a lot of balls in the air the last few weeks (and this will continue through May). Written by a man named Scott Westerman, his message today (not yet up on his site), had a couple of pieces that felt quite profound to me.

If your best friend confided this [your current problem], what advice would you give? We tend to be gentle, rational, patient, supportive and pretty darn smart when those we love ask us for our wisdom. Find your best friend and get an emotional battery charge. If that person isn't nearby, speak to yourself as you would to that individual you most cherish. And listen.

This is spot-on. When friends have stuff they're worried about, I remind them that they're okay, they've got this. My friends do the same for me. Why, then, is it so hard for us to do it for ourselves?

Ten years from now, how important will the things you worry about today really be? Probably not important at all. Our earthly assignment is to discover our calling and work in its direction to the best of our ability. There are always detours on this road but if you keep your eyes on your ultimate destination, you will deal with most unpleasant things that face you now, without losing sight of your goal. This is the foundation of faith. That sometimes irrational belief that if you keep on keeping on, things will work out.

Absolutely. Things will work out. And I need to remind myself, more often that the things that keep me awake at night now are not, in the grand scheme of things, very important. I can't even remember most of what bothered or worried me ten years ago, except some angst about leaving a job I loved that was only part-time.

Westerman has a site where you can read his past Monday Motivators (a favorite of mine, shared my my friend Lindsay and the one that had me subscribing in the first place, is Chasing Happiness. I'm due a re-read of that one). Some weeks I simply skim the content of the email I receive, but others, like today, really hit home with me. Today's was worth sharing...especially as it gave me a break from worrying. ; )