The Stress Limit

I don't know about you but sometimes I get up earlier than the alarm. And then I do a few things like an errand to avoid traffic. During the holidays when so many of us have a tendency to rush around I wanted to take it easy so to foster this I was out around 6am doing my deliveries and pick ups, places like that are open 24 hours like FedEx, Kinkos and the Post Office self-serve. Now you wouldn't imagine anyone would be in a hurry at that time but there was. I live in an area of the city called Waterford and there is this wonderful street called Waterford Chase Parkway and this is a long and twisty road which extends, depending on your point of view from a road called Lake Underhill to another called Avalon Park Blvd. If you happen to live there too you know that it's a two lane road and the speed limit is 25 miles/hour- you can't pass anyone. This particular morning I met up with another car also out early for whatever reason. And we were doing nicely going 25 making the turns and twisting the lines heading towards Lake Underhill. We both made the left turn to head through more Waterford neighborhood entrances until...

Suddenly! From nowhere came up a car careening around us at the fantastical speed of quite possibly 50 miles per hour. Now perhaps this person was heading to the hospital and had someone in the car that was dying or perhaps they themselves were in pain. Who can really say? But more often than not this isn't the case. And I suddenly realized this car passing both of us quite easily and quickly that quiet December morning a few years ago, that at least one source of a huge amount of stress is impatience and the other attachment to an outcome. Even if he was rightly so speeding to get to the hospital, the urgency caused him great impatience, definitely the pain- and he was very attached to the outcome of getting to the hospital to resolve whatever medical issue it was. And that's okay, if however, he was merely careening around the other cars doing the well more than the speed limit just to get there a little faster or was he possibly running late for work to some appointment at 6am? I don't suppose I'll ever know but I do know that an awful lot of stress is caused by my impatience and attachment to an outcome. Glad to be writing this from home and not on the road.

Live in Love, Sharon L