This week I spent a lot of time worrying about a meeting. I've read in various places that most worries and anxieties have to do with future events. You can easily spend your whole life fretting about the future or dwelling on the past and completely miss out on what's going on right in front of your nose. That's why many philosophical and religious teachings suggest you "live in the moment."
Of course I rarely do that. I wish I could, but apparently that level of enlightenment is beyond me at this point. Maybe it's because so much of my life has to do with deadlines. A deadline by its nature is a future event. As a future event, it's something I can fret about. I've written books, articles, and worked on countless design projects and never actually never missed a deadline, but I still I worry.
And like the deadlines I never miss, the meeting wasn't worth worrying about either. The folks that called it didn't bother to show up. Talk about an anticlimax. All that fretting for nothing. I worried about acrimony, strife and conflict. But given the big "no show" instead, I got to enjoy a fun evening out with a nice group of people I haven't seen in a while.
At the risk if getting a bit philosophical, my welcome surprise was just more proof that life is a journey. You just never know what's around the next bend. It might be bad; it might be good, but you can't really know until you get there. |
