Aren’t you done feeling stressed all the time?
It’s bad enough that modern life in general has become super stressful, but we parents seem to have mastered the art of adding more and more stress to our lives.
And the terrible thing is, the more stress we’re under, the less we’re able to enjoy our children, and the fleeting days of their littleness and innocence and, well, ours.
Too often I postpone moments of connection with my daughters, instead allowing myself to be consumed by a to-do list that somehow feels more urgent in that moment. I end up spending my limited store of energy on things that don’t matter much at all.
For instance, during Christmas I thought it would be fun to use holiday-themed postage stamps for our Christmas cards. What started as a simple idea soon turned into an acute source of stress… it was getting close to my deadline for mailing the cards, but I just couldn’t seem to make it to the post office. Knowing that the lines would be insane that time of year made me resist the trip even more.
Every time I passed the pile of cards on the counter, ready to go but for a lack of stamps, I felt a little zing of annoyance and frustration. Until one day I realized just how ridiculous the situation was!
No one receiving the card was going to care or notice what kind of stamps I used. I could simplify my life during a chaotic season by simply slapping on the vanilla American flag stamps I already had on hand.
Which is what I finally did. It felt great to finally get the cards off my counter and in the mailbox.
That situation got me thinking…