Hope and Hatred Among Human Suffering

In the last five months the people of this nation have been tested and tormented. Terrorists have brought fear and destruction. Evil posing as a troubled youth brought heart break to a small town school. Now a natural disaster has rocked the heartland.

This is not a particularly strong time for our country. The economy is poor, jobs are scarce and morale is low.

What is something that shines in these dark times? The human spirit. The decency and kindness that stops people in their tracks in the face of a tragedy, if for nothing else, but to hurt with those that are hurting.

That spirit is what drives volunteers and emergency workers to ease suffering and work through the night to do all they can. It’s what encourages children to send drawings to the wounded and adults to send checks. Because there is an outpouring of helping hands, I have hope for the human condition.

As long as we care more about easing the suffering of others than our own petty inconveniences, there is hope for this world as a whole.

If you are a thousand miles from a disaster and have no funds or supplies to donate, why not keep victims in your prayers? If you are a non-believer then you could keep them in your thoughts, if you prefer. What harm is there in thinking kind, sympathetic thoughts?

Is that not offering a kindness?

There has been some criticism, following the tornadoes in Oklahoma, scorning the offering of prayers as a way to support the victims. Some of the discussion has turned quite nasty.

Instead of real help we cling to our antiquated religion, praying for the effects of God’s work to be un-done.

No. I cling to the principle that most people are good and decent. That the human spirit will reach out to one another in times of need and lift each other up. I cling to the fact that most people will feel and empathize and send out hopeful thoughts for those in Oklahoma, Boston and Newtown. 

That they will wish for comfort and relief for the victims and the safety of all involved. I do it in prayer to my God. You do it anyway you see fit.

What I cannot wrap my head around is the wasted efforts, and breathe of tearing down people that are trying to offer hope. Why take the time to spill such hatred when there is so much suffering happening right now? Of all the things you could be doing with your time, why belittle those who are offering kindness and encouraging others to do the same?

The world suffers enough. You don’t need to add any extra hatred or pain to it. I’m sure there are many that could use donations of your time and money. Maybe, you could start with a kind thought.

I’ll offer one on your behalf, with those I send out for Oklahoma tonight.

I don’t apologize for my belief in God and you shouldn’t apologize for your beliefs, but this is not the conversation we should be having right now. Find a positive way to help, any way to help.

Do you want to be the person bringing hope or hatred in this time of suffering?

Loving Life's Roller Coasters

I love roller coasters, I really do. My husband and I have been sneaking away for grown-up amusement park weekends for years now. Old school wooden coasters, sleek steal rails, hanging suspension style we’ve done it all. We love the free-falling thrill of dropping, spinning and spiraling in a well controlled manner.

I have still not learned to appreciate these same feelings in the rest of my life.

Life is not spent at an even keel. There are good moments that take us on highs, low moments can drop us suddenly and flat stretches will sometimes drag on longer then we like.

The exciting moments always seem much too brief, and the spiraling drops sometimes feel endless. 

None of it feels very controlled or safe.

What if there were no drops? No loops, cork-screws or hills. Just a nice smooth ride. Then life wouldn’t be a roller coaster would it? It would be a train ride.

There’s nothing wrong with a train. I think they’re relaxing and the ride can be very scenic. But if the track stays flat forever won’t we tire of the ride? We wouldn’t learn very much from a smooth un-interrupted ride.

Would the blandness of the mundane overshadow our fears of the unknown?

Writing a novel has been its own kind of ride. There was the lengthy process of writing the book and editing it. Much like standing in line on a very busy Saturday in July at Disney World.

Then comes sending your manuscript out to the very first readers to see if you have a story. That’s chugging slowly up the first big hill of the coaster with your heart in your throat. You know what it feels like, you look out over the entire amusement park and think ‘what have I done’ but it’s way too late by that point, you’re already strapped in.

Once you hit the first loop that’s the equivalent of getting your first positive feedback. Next comes querying for agents. Will the terrifying corkscrew of death ever end? Yes, to send you hurtling towards the ground at the speed of sound.

You get the idea, writing a book has a lot of ups and downs.

So, why do I love roller coasters?

Honestly, the first one of the day I don’t. I’m always terrified to get on that first roller coaster every trip. Going up that hill is painful, but I grit my teeth and say a little prayer. Somewhere around the halfway point of the first drop, which coincidentally is when my scream runs of out of air, the fear turns into a thrill.

That’s when I can let go of the bar, put my hands in the air and fly in total freedom.

I just don’t think a flat track would have the same effect.

Without risks, trials and pain, all the lows of life, the highs would not be as sweet. If we had no sorrow to compare our happiness to, how would we indeed know we were happy? Mondays would not be the same if there weren’t a few loop de loops.

No one really enjoys the ups and downs and downs of life. Somewhere in the beginning we were terrified and now we’ve become so jaded we ride life’s amusement park like an elevator instead of a thrill ride.

Stop waiting for the destination and enjoy the ride, because pretty soon it will be time to get off.

Grit your teeth, say a prayer and let go, knowing that with every low another high will pop up.

You can’t fly on a flat track.

Are you going to love the roller coaster?  

What We Leave Behind

February is a month of anniversaries. It marks the celebration of love, presidents and even the birth of my beautiful twin daughters. For me it also brings memories of the brother I lost on February 22, 2008.

Each year I sort through a few more boxes of his stowed belongings and come out with some new surprises. This year I came upon a memory he had tucked away in his wallet.

You can tell a lot about a person by what ‘s in their wallet or purse.  For instance I have large quantities of receipts in my purse for my expense reports. Call it disorganization if you want, I prefer to think of it as a relaxed filing system. Look at the details of the receipts and you can figure out the entire layout of my sales territory. Keep digging in the depths of my handbag and you’ll find clip on sparkle earrings, paint swatches and fuzzy pom-poms. It would not take a detective to figure out I have little girls that are divas, am redecorating my kitchen, and use “warm fuzzies” as a reward for good behavior.

What kind of story are you carrying around with you?

In going through my brother’s wallet I found lot’s of telling tokens. There was a club card for his favorite Mexican restaurant that was so worn out he’d laminated the frayed pieces together. His collection of home grown hot peppers was represented by a pepper postage stamp. In the window where most people keep their drivers license he had a copy of the serenity prayer. It was there behind that printed prayer that I found something incredibly meaningful.

A faded year-old Wal-Mart receipt for $108.95.

At first I couldn’t see the relevance of this slip of paper. The purchases were t-shirts, shorts and socks, hardly high value purchases. Why had he kept it? More so, why was it so worn out? There were check marks by each item and the receipt had been creased and re-creased.

It wasn’t until I checked the date and location that I remembered the shopping trip. I had been with my brother that day. It was his final trip to rehab and I had come to visit him for the day. We had gone to lunch together, walked the Old Town Mall in Winchester and gone shopping. It was the first time in years we had spent time together just the two of us, it would be one of the last.

Did he keep the receipt because that day meant so much to him? I can’t say for sure. I know that the sword he bought in a specialty shop that day is on the wall of my craft room. Doesn’t everyone have a sword in their craft room? I also know that for some reason he believed I was miraculous. He would tell anyone that listened what a fantastic mother I was. Nothing I accomplished surprised him, because he expected me to fly.

I can’t count the things my brother left behind. We have an authentic light saber, every video gaming system known to man and Matrix action figures. Beyond that, he left me the belief in adventure, an irresistible desire to rescue the downtrodden, and the determination not to disappoint his memory.

Besides what’s in my purse, what would I be leaving behind if I suddenly left this world? I never let my family leave without saying I love you, but I want to do more for them. I want my daughters to know how to be strong women. I want my son to know how to treat his wife and family one day. They all need to know how to stand up for their values and be who they are. That I believe they are stronger and more wonderful than they can ever imagine.

In this day and age we need to try and leave the world a little better off for our time in it. I don’t just mean recycling, though that is a good thing. Leave people better off for having known you. Make an impact on your family and on your world. Leave someone smiling one day when they sort through your wallet.

What are you going to leave behind?

Taking Control Through Choice

In light of recent events many of us have lost our Christmas spirit. Some feel like skipping the celebrations all together.

We need to embrace that spirit like never before.

When my oldest child boarded the school bus for the first day of kindergarten I smiled and waved like a perky pageant queen. As soon as that sunshine yellow child thief lumbered off I burst into tears.

It had nothing to do with my baby growing up, but everything to do with losing control.

For the first time I would not know what or how my child was doing all day. I was leaving him to his own devices and the care of strangers.

Even as a working mother I’d been able to call the babysitter, who was also family, at any time for updates. I could find out what they were doing, hear his voice or even stop by if I was so inclined. 

The beginning of public school changed all that.

Losing control meant gaining fear and anxiety as a parent.

As the world becomes increasingly chaotic and self-destructive we can feel overwhelmed by despair or even hopelessness. Every newscast seems more tragic then the last.

I can’t control what is happening in our nation and across the world. I can’t turn around the economy. I can’t stop senseless violence. I can’t put an end to hate.

I can control my little piece of this world.

This holiday season I can celebrate peace, charity and love. I can make my home a place of comfort and joy and teach my children how to spread goodness in their little part of the world.

If many of us choose to act in this way all of our little pieces could add up to something really wonderful.

Darkness and tragedy may be thrust upon us, but it is our choice in how we react.

What support will we give? What strength will we gain?

I adapted to having children in school as all parents do. The teachers and staff that were “strangers” are now treasured friends. In a school of 1200 students the phenomenal ladies in the office call me and my children by our first names.

How did I go from terror to trust? I chose to embrace the new environment. Really to jump in with both feet. Cupcakes for a party? Sign me up. Parent teacher conferences? Never missed one. Kindergarten Career Day? Who knew you could hold five-year-olds spell bound with a model of a clogged artery?

By being a positive presence I felt more in control of my children’s environment.

This Christmas I’m choosing to make my part of the world as bright as I can, for the sake of my family and my fellow man. Maybe no one else will notice, but I think just making that choice will give me a little more control over the fear and horror that has been reigning unchecked lately.

I will choose where I stand and I will not be moved.

What are you going to choose to do with your part of the world?

Weeding the Fear Garden

Fear has gone from a tool of survival to an indestructible dandelion.

Think of your life as a nice orderly garden full of your hopes and dreams. Fear are the weeds that keep us too preoccupied to notice that the pumpkin patch is infested with squash bugs.

Normal people are afraid of things that can actually do them harm: heights, poisonous spiders, or flying. Granted you'd be pretty hard pressed to actually fall off the Empire State Building during a tour, but it's a legitimate fear all the same.

None of those things bother me. Bring on the spiraling looping steel roller coasters of death, I'm game all day long, and I'll even hang on to my breakfast.

I'll crush any spider, swat any bee, although admittedly I will do a shrieking little getaway dance if I have an unplanned encounter with a snake.

At a training class, in Chicago, I met a lady so terrified of flying she begged her husband to come drive her home. He declined to make the trip up from Louisiana in the middle of February.

 I view flying as a rare opportunity to enjoy a good book, uninterrupted by children or technology.

My fear doesn't involve creepy crawlies or hurtling to my death. In my defense there are sharp objects and masked men.

I'm afraid of the dentist.

Go ahead and laugh, you know you want to.

Usually I'll say that and people chime in "Oh, I don't like it either!"

Disliking something is not the same thing. I'm talking about the kind of fear that puts knots in your stomach and a sweat on your brow.

When I was pregnant with my oldest I went for my first dental cleaning in years. I specifically went, because I knew they couldn't do anything more then the basics while I was pregnant.

I was so gripped by terror, that on the way there I cut little half moons into my palms by digging my nails into the flesh of my clinched fists. The dentist had to keep reminding me to relax my hands through out the appointment.

Now, you probably think I'm a few flowers short of a bouquet, but how do you feel about public speaking? Did your palms just get sweaty thinking about it?

Of course my fear isn't logical, I know that. Nothing bad is going to happen to me, especially during a cleaning. Those little lectures with my inner self don't help at all.

When you to talk in front of a group they're not going to throw sharp objects at your head. If that's the case, you might want to re-think your speaking engagements.

As we gain a little perspective in our years we start to understand real fear. Losing our loved ones. Our children being hurt. The evil that exists in the world.

Once we see the big picture those little weeds don't seem so terrible.

Right before my last dental appointment one of my little girls had fallen off the monkey bars at school. Fearing her arm was fractured, the doctor sent her for x-rays.

Even though it was one of my rougher appointments, and I was plenty sore later, I didn't have time to be afraid. I just wanted them to hurry up so I could get to my baby.

Losing someone to young often makes us realize how much of life we're missing out on. If your bucket list includes trips to Fiji, Calcutta, and Moscow, but you won't set foot on an airstrip maybe it's time to pull that weed. Don't get around to your gardening too late!

There are enough truly bad things in the world to distract us from our lives. Let's start working on these fears before the squash bugs take over.

Who's ready to do a little weeding?

A Recipe for Lemonade

Disappointment is never fun, but it's a part of life. They don't have your size in the shoes you want. The new movie you've been waiting months for is a dud. Your dinner plans get cancelled at the last minute. We don't like it. We may grumble about it. As adults we can adjust. Can't we?

For children disappointment can be crushing. They can't always see the big picture, and a major let down can shake their faith in people. As a parent you never want to see one of your kiddos hurting,  let alone all of them.

This week we had plans to go away for a few days while I had some down time in my job transition. Our kids were thrilled at the prospect of staying in a hotel, and most of all visiting the amusement park in Hershey Pennsylvania. As their parents, anything we say is gospel law. They couldn't imagine that the trip would not come to pass.

Life happens though, and my husband's vacation request was not approved. We'll still be able to go, just not until late August. I might as well have told my kids we'd never be going on vacation again. A few weeks, sounded like a few centuries to them. What's worse, is that one of my girls had fallen asleep as soon as we had come home that evening, and she slept right on through until morning. She wasn't awake when I told the other two we were postponing the trip. I had to watch another little face fall the next morning when I explained it all over again.

My counter offer to my kids disappointment, was making lemonade with Mom. After all, I had cleared my schedule. Why not make the most of our time? I'm always jealous of the fun stuff my babysitter gets to do with them. We would take our nasty lemons and make the best lemonade ever.

This summer I have become a Pinterest addict. If you haven't checked out the website I highly recommend it. That's where we gathered the rest of our ingredients. I scoured through my Pinterest board of kids crafts and summer activities and found the most interesting ones for our list. Ranging from sidewalk paint and salt art to snake bubbles. Then we hit the dollar store for supplies.

Stir in some pool time, ice cream, and a trip to an inflatable indoor playground and you have a deliciously sweet lemonade.

We've made some wonderful memories, and I'm fairly certain that their faith has been restored that we will be making that trip to Hershey sooner rather than later.

The whole experience has made me wonder, though. As "mature" grown-ups, how often do we make the best of things? Do we just take life's disappointments on the chin and move on? If so, maybe all those little lemons are leaving a sour taste.

If we're crushed to see our children's sadness at disappointments, I'm sure our Heavenly Father feels the same way about us.

Why not make lemonade a little more often? I'd be happy to share my recipe.

Reverse Logging

First, let me apologize for not posting last week. Everything is fine, and thank you to all of those who checked up on me. I've been uprooted from my day job and transferred to a different division. The post for last week had a little too much attitude in it, so I decided to scrap it until I was in a better mood.

There's a small percentage of Americans that never actually have to work a day in their lives. The rest of us will be punching a clock for the majority of our natural lives. Depending on how broke we are, will determine how hard and how much we will have to work.

Everyone has stories to tell. It starts in high school waiting tables, pumping gas or taking orders at the drive-thru window. Maybe it's even younger working on the family farm or delivering the newspaper. I've never actually lived somewhere that had paperboys, but I'm sure it exists other then on television.

I worked two jobs through college to pay for living expenses. I'm still paying for the actual cost of college. Unless it was an emergency, I swore after graduation I would never eat Raman noodles again. Little did I know the happiest poverty was yet to come.

Combining two incomes should improve your financial situation. Unfortunately you're also combining two sets of living expenses. We discovered in the first year of marriage that our income would not stretch to cover a vacation.

Enter our short lived career in reverse logging.

What we did might sound a lot like planting trees, but it was much more labor intensive and hardcore then simple landscaping.

To prevent erosion around streams and creeks, the government provides grants to land owners to plant large numbers of trees in these riparian areas. In true red-tape bureaucratic style, there's about seventy-four steps to planting government trees.

First, a small hole is made and the stick with roots, think about twice the size of what your kid brings home for Arbor day, is mashed in and covered. Then, the next person drives a stake into the ground beside the tree and places a protective tube over the stick, cable tying it to the stake. Are you still with me?

The next team member comes along and places a 3'x3' fabric weed square with a slit in the center over the tree. Most importantly the fabric has to be shiny side up, according to government specs. We once had to re-do half a field that did not meet the check box. After that we learned to chant "sunny side up" as we laid the mats. Each mat had to have every corner folded in and a staple driven through it into the ground. Not necessarily difficult, but excruciating on the back.

The crowning piece was a little birdie net that went on top of the tube to keep birds and animals from eating the trees.

There's a couple things you should know to put this logging project in perspective. Planting a few trees on a lovely spring day sounds like a charming way to make a little extra money. We planted 750 to 2500 trees per farm in wind, rain, mud and bone-chilling cold. There were a few days we could work in our shirt sleeves, but they were few and far between. It was more common that we would lay thirty mats, and then sit in the truck for five minutes to warm up, and then lay thirty more mats.

Now, a dozen years later, my husband likes to tell these stories to our kids. He wants them to know that the mother they always see with hair and make-up done, heading to work in high heals, is capable of manual labor.

He especially likes to tell them about me walking through a truck stop to the ladies room. To stay warm and dry, I would layer my husband's brown coveralls over my coat, jeans, sweatshirt and long johns, paired with massive insulated boots. I stomped down the hallway like a brick wall. The roughest of truck drivers and bikers stepping aside in reverence, or fear.


The following year we still couldn't afford a vacation, so we went on a "free" time share weekend. All we had to do was take part in a ninety minute presentation. After being held hostage for three hours, I would have gladly planted trees again before accepting another deal from that particular devil.


Everyone has experiences like this. The waitressing job that kept you on your feet so long you had to go into the walk-in freezer to get your wedding rings off your swollen pregnant fingers. Or the teacher that delivers pizzas and DJ's weddings so he can provide a better life for his family. Maybe you're there right now. Whether you know it or not, you are making someone very proud. 


What story does someone tell about you? 

Reading the Cover

Picture, if you will,  a beautiful summer day outside a small rural hospital not too many years ago. The sunshine has warmed the air to a perfect eighty-two degrees, and an enormous American flag drifts lazily in a breeze overhead. The sidewalks are framed by heavy fragrant blooms. It's the kind of day that you'd rather not be working, but either way you can't bring yourself to be in a bad mood. You see a drug rep tip-tapping down the sidewalk in very cute shoes and looking very professional in her business attire. She too looks pleased with the day as she totes her heavy bag of drug samples, computers and who knows what else along the side of the hospital. Quite suddenly you see her jerk her head to the right almost laying her ear on her shoulder and then back to the left shoulder. Next she shakes her head back and forth while reaching both hands towards heaven as if pleading for help. You watch horrified as her back begins to arch and buck with each twitch. Muttering to herself she begins hobbling away poking herself in the head. Should you offer assistance or run inside for help? Is she having some sort of seizure or has she escaped from the psychiatric ward? There could be a naked drug rep locked in a janitor's closet somewhere in the hospital right now. If you get involved you may end stabbed in the carotid artery with a sharpened plastic spoon this woman saved from last night's pudding cup. Better stay in the car and mind your own business.

Let's open the cover and look inside this slasher novel. I of course was that drug rep on the beautiful sunny day, and I hope no one was sitting in their cars watching the scene unfold. I have big hair, after all I'm southern, and to achieve this requires a variety of hair spray and styling products. The effect is a pouf that is airy on the inside and slightly crunchy on the outside, like a fresh donut at the fair.. On that happy summer day a bee flew into my hair and became trapped in that pouffy cage. Of the initial thoughts that run through your head when this happens, none of them involve what you might look like to other people.

When my brother was thirteen a bee flew up his shirt sleeve while he was riding a motorcycle, and stung him six times. It was instinct on the bee's part, when trapped a bee will continue to sting until it dies or escapes. That was my first thought while the frantic insect was trying to escape my coif. My second thought is how to get rid of it with out beating my hairstyle into oblivion. Vain, probably. Pertinent for the rest of my work day, definitely. The resolution was a head tossing, hair shaking approach that got me away sting free. I will admit that I don't like bee's so I was also doing the scaredy cat shuffle at the same time. In paranoia that the little sucker was still there I continued to poke at my hair all the way to the car.

With out all the details a situation can look very different, and we may point and laugh at what we don't understand. Was this a funny situation? No it was a hysterical situation, but what if a few details were different. What if I had been allergic to bees and didn't have an epi-pen. Or what if it had truly been a seizure.

In college a friend and I went into a gas station late at night. She was barefoot, and to say her feet were dirty would be an understatement, they were green. It was not a warm reception. People stared at us like we were there to shoplift the ingredients for our Daddy's moonshine.

They should have been thankful she didn't wear her shoes, they were caked with fresh cow patty. That green coloring on her feet was a also a "fresh" stain. Those that judged us could not have been more wrong. We were both dean's list students, from a women's college and my friend was a city girl that would pull over to talk to cows because they were cute. Visiting her boyfriend that night, who was a farmer, she had stepped in a rogue cow pie coating her strappy sandals and her feet. Spraying them off with a hose was not going to cut it. Tossing her shoes in the trunk we headed home, but had to get gas first and paying at the pump was not an option in those days. Did she want to go into a gas station of all places with bare feet? I think she still has nightmares about it, but she didn't have much of an option. I have often wondered how many nasty remarks were said about us as the door swung shut.

How many nasty remarks are said on a daily basis? Or how many jokes are made at someone else's expense? These were two off the wall examples, but all too often we're quick to judge when we don't know the situation or what's going on behind the scenes. We accuse someone of being snobby and standoffish when really they're just shy or at least quieter then we are. Jokes about a crabby and mean spirited co-worker are funny until you realize that all along they've been battling depression or cancer. Sometimes we try to read the book by the cover.

Many years ago, before our children were born, my husband and I took a last blast weekend trip to an amusement park. We wanted to get in all our thrill rides before we were relegated to the "other" side of the park. At the end of the first day we each picked our favorite roller coaster to ride one last time. Mine was Apollo's Chariot, taller than any other ride in the park it had huge drops, smooth cork screws and it made you feel like you were flying. As we were strapped in and awaiting our take off some tween girls in line called out to me. "It's OK!", "Don't be scared!" ,"It's really not that bad!" I had just enough time to wave and thank them before we shot off. As we clicked up the one hundred and seventy feet I asked my husband what he thought that was about. He shrugged "You just looked really serious". Apparently my serious face looked like pure terror to those girls. That can't be a good look. I loved that roller coaster, we'd ridden it something like eight times that day. I made a note to keep my thinking face a little lighter in the future. That little lesson has always stuck with me, I have nothing to look so sour about, but people will judge our thoughts and feelings by the expression on our face. I feel bad for worrying those girls, but good for them reaching out to comfort a stranger like that. Somebody I know might call that a seventeen second miracle.

For good or for bad things just aren't always what they appear. We don't know all the details that have led someone down a particular path. Nor do we always know what's going on right in front of us. Someone may literally have a bee in their bonnet.


Special thanks to Jason Wright and his shout out to my blog this week. He's brought a lot of new eyes here, and I hope I don't disappoint. Please, please leave a comment below, I love hearing from you and if you like what you see share it with your friends!

You'll Have to Wear Orange

If you ever want to understand just how complicated we make our lives, take a look at things through the eyes of a child. To our beautiful children the logic of how the world works is quite simple, a+b=c. It is we, the grown-ups, that add in the what-ifs, contingency plans and endless obstacles that have us wondering if our youth will be in therapy for much of their natural born lives.

On a recent road trip our entire family was loaded snugly into my husband's truck for the three hour ride. When accelerating onto the interstate the truck's engine became very loud. Yes, it's got a hemmie. It sounded like we were going very fast. The conversation went like this:

A little girl gasping from the backseat, "Daddy! You need to slow down."
Daddy, laughing, "Why?'
"You're going to get arrested!"
 "So?"
"You won't be able to get the food you want and you'll have to wear orange!"

To my pink loving picky eater there could only be one fate more terrible...having to wear brown. For her it was a very simple thing, breaking the law equalled a loss of freedom. Which in turn meant losing the two things she adored most, fashion and cheese pizza. How would this scenario be different for an adult? What runs through your mind when you're in danger of being pulled over for speeding? If you've ever been in danger of such a thing. I myself would not be familiar with that feeling of heart pounding, gut wrenching, cold terror. Nope, not a clue what it's like.

Fear and tension over the initial pullover. Where is the money going to come from to pay for this fine? What is my husband/wife going to say? Is my insurance going to go up? Am I going to lose my insurance? Am I going to lose my licence? Will this effect my job? I'm going to be late picking the kids up from school. They'll be stranded. What if starts to rain? What if they don't know what to do? What if they start walking home and a stranger abducts them in a white unmarked van with out of state plates?

Maybe that last part was a stretch, but you see where the overcomplicated human mind goes. We think up extra stress for ourselves. Are there real issues we need to plan for and think through? Absolutely. Do we need to think about the minuscule details, weighing out every pro and con of each and every daily decision we make? I'd rather be stabbed in the eye with a spoon. You're probably thinking right now, "Of course I don't do that, it's ridiculous!". You do it with out even realizing it. Somewhere in the development of mankind our survival went from clubbing our food to worrying about life's what-ifs. There's nothing wrong with being prepared for the worst or even the slightly bad. However, our day is not full of life altering decisions and preparations for Armageddon and should not be given the same level of attention. 

Should I have the salad for lunch? I'm going out tonight, so I'll probably have a big dinner, and the salad will be nice and light. But the burgers are on special for $5, that's half the price of the salad and I'm trying to save money. I wonder what everyone else from the office will think if I get a big greasy burger? I wonder what they're getting? This is a great example for the "Will it Matter Rule". Normally I'd say in twenty years is this going to matter, but in this instance I can say next week will this matter. If not, then you're over complicating it.

Sometimes we can add so much stress to our lives it can actually rub off on our children's and cause their simplistic logic to become intense. A few years ago I was preparing for a visit from a higher up manager in my company and the strain was getting to me, as was the rambunctiousness of my twin daughters. Before I could reprimand them my son, who was five at the time, harshly put them in their place.

"Girls be quiet! If Mommy doesn't do well at work tomorrow she'll get fired. We'll lose our house, our toys, EVERYTHING." After a moment of silence I decided I was projecting a little too much tension on my babies and it was time for a break. He still had easy three point logic, but no five year old should know what "fired" means.

Before the twins entered kindergarten I spent six months worrying about the decision to put them in separate classes. I asked teachers for opinions, parents of twins and of course googled it. They needed to develop their own interests and personalities, make their own friends. I stared at the ceiling at night imagining a first week of sobbing separation anxiety. The first day of school came and the girls rode off on the bus like princesses to the royal ball. When the terrible twosome arrived at school they went to their separate classrooms without a second thought and have never looked back. I nearly bled out from a gastric ulcer for nothing.

So what can we learn from the innocence of children? Don't make everything so complicated. In the grand scheme is this decision going to matter? If it's going to make you a better person, a happier person and a stronger member of your family, then it's a good choice and you can move on. As long as you don't have to wear orange.

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