Today I managed to create stress out of the simplest of things…….. and man was I frustrated!
It all started with forgetting what day it was. I am pretty sure there were a few of us out there who after a public holiday yesterday, genuinely thought it was Monday today. I realised at 8:20 that it was Tuesday, just as my daughter was riding her bike out of the driveway.
Stop! ‘It is Tuesday you don’t ride today because you have art after school’
Then ensued the rush about. Bike back in garage. Adjust bag contents. Grab car keys. Run out the door. Off we go to kiss and drop. All good.
I get home and begin my list of chores. The usual…….. hanging out washing, loading dishwasher, taking out rubbish, checking emails, while my husband makes some phone calls (yes lucky us, Tuesday’s off together). Then we decide to duck into town to pick something up at the post office and have a coffee together.
No car keys…
What??!! I am completely confused. I dropped our daughter at school, came home walked in the door put my keys and phone down on the bench and started jobs….. didn’t I?
Twenty minutes of us both looking. No luck. Get the spare keys. Get in the car and guess what…… the battery is flat in the spare key. Car won’t start.
At this point we are both feeling frustrated and weary. We get the ute keys and head into town via the car dealership to get the battery changed in the spare key. By the time we hit the coffee shop we are hanging out for that familiar warm and bitter pick me up. What a morning……
Some 5 hours later and after turning the house upside down, our son and I are clowning about, when I suddenly look up at the shelf and there right beside the fish tank….. the keys.
So as it turns out, I did not walk in the door and put my keys and phone down on the bench and then start my chores. No, as per usual I was in a rush to get things done, my brain was moving at a million miles an hour, listing out the chores in my head. I obviously was not concentrating as I walked in the door and walked straight over to open the blinds and feed the fish.
If I am completely honest, I still really don’t remember doing it! But, I must have opened the blind, put they keys down picked up the fish food, fed fish and walked away, brain already focused on the next task.
A simple action with a major consequence, all because I was not present in the moment. Instead I was somewhere in my head, listing jobs, planning my most efficient approach and perhaps even thinking about that 11am coffee.
Not being present wasted 7 whole hours to frustration and stress and not just for me, for my husband too.
Today’s lesson: Less haste, more speed. Slow down and concentrate, it will be worth it in the end……. Unless of course, you can train your fish to talk!
LLS
The Travel Bee 