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Like most working moms, I am pretty busy, but I am also the type that believes most of us are as busy as we choose to be.
One of the ways I've learned to better handle being busy is to stop trying to cram too much in an allotted time. Really, is the world going to end because we are out of milk or bread for one day? I've learned to relax about quite a few things. Making extra stops before I go home is something I try to avoid. Is it a big deal to go without an item for one day? Probably not. Is it a big deal if I do stop and end up waiting in line and therefore getting home 15 minutes later than I thought? Again, probably not.
I made a conscious decision to become less stressed about these things after an experience a couple of summers ago.
I had gone to the grocery store during my hour-long lunch break, after stopping at the bank and a couple of other stores to pick things up. It was my last stop and I only really needed one thing which was my favorite tea I religiously drink each morning. I grabbed a deli sandwich to eat in the car on the way back to work.
There were only a couple check-out lanes open. I picked the shortest one. There was an older, retired couple in front of me. They apparently had all the time in the world. They commented on the clerk's name, they talked to each other about the price of sour cream and then they asked the checker if she was in high school. The clerk had the surly teen life sucks act going and was not all that pleasant.
I had three items and could have had my items scanned, bagged and paid for in the time that had passed while they visited. I was seriously annoyed and without thinking about it, a heavy sigh may have come out of nowhere on my part.
The older lady turned to me and glared.
She got one of those I'll teach her a lesson looks on her face and proceeded to ask the clerk what she planned to do after high school. The clerk said, "I want to become a vet. I don't really like working with people."
The older couple replied that made sense to them, and the woman turned to me with a sly smile, presumably because she had managed to waste more of my time.
I felt the irritated look on my face turn to dumbfounded, and then to a oh-my-God-these-people-need-to-get-a-clue expression (at least that is what I was thinking). I resisted the urge to snort.
I found myself wanting to ask what animals she planned on working with that she wouldn't have to work with their human owners. I quickly thought back to when we put our beloved dog down and how compassionate our vet had been. This girl seemed to have the compassion of a stump.
The older couple finally wrote out a check and left.
I did not visit with the clerk. I said thank you and left.
My annoyance that day may have been justified, or I was just a little hangry (hungry/angry). None the less, I felt myself thinking uncharitable, snotty thoughts about these people. I mean really, could they not remember a time in their life when they were in a hurry?
Then I realized the fact that the whole thing had probably taken up about three minutes of my time. Did I need to dislike people I didn't know because they wasted three minutes of my life? Was it really a big deal in the grand scheme of things? Nope. It was my decision to squeeze one more thing in too short of time. It was my choice to treat a want like a need.
On another day, maybe I would have liked the older couple, maybe not. But knowing that I was too busy to be nice means I was choosing to be too busy and needed to chill out. Now if I can only remember that all the time...[[In-content Ad]]

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