Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

Opus

February 21, 2006

Great piece in the Op/Ed section of the Globe on Sunday. I've found it especially true that you have to relearn life's lessons over & over.

BEVERLY BECKHAM
Don't sweat the small stuff when so much else matters
February 19, 2006

What I know now, what I've learned but what I have to remind myself every day, is that none of it matters. The snow. Sitting in traffic. Missing a flight. Forgetting to TiVo ''Lost." A bad cup of $2 coffee. A woman sitting in her car, WHAT IS SHE DOING JUST SITTING, while you're waiting with your blinker clicking for her to pull out of a space so you can pull in because the parking lot is that crowded and it's not even a Saturday.

We waste our energy and too much of our lives getting upset over what are only annoyances. ''Ask yourself, will this matter in a year?" my father used to say when I'd call in a tizzy from the car, because of something that seemed huge at the time but for the life of me I can't remember now. ''See?" I can almost hear him saying.

Before he got old and wise and philosophical, however, he got upset over dumb things, too. Someone cutting him off as he drove. A doctor keeping him waiting -- ''My time is valuable, too." A person at the Market Basket with more than 12 items in the express line. (This set him raving.) The techs at AOL who kept him on hold and then couldn't fix what didn't work. And my saying, ''I'll call you right back," and then forgetting. ''It's a good thing I wasn't holding my breath," he must have said 100 times.

Many years ago he hurt my feelings when he told me that a bed set I'd bought for his and my mother's wedding anniversary -- sheets and pillowcases and a comforter and bed skirt to match -- wasn't ''thoughtful." ''What kind of a gift are sheets?"

''They're not just sheets, Dad. They're a set. What do you mean sheets aren't thoughtful?"

I fumed. I called my friends. I said my father is impossible to please.

What I know now is that it was never about the sheets. It was about his life. He wanted a different one. A pretty bed set didn't change anything. My mother was confined to her bed. Dressing it up didn't help.

All the time he was sick and I sat by his side, things like this were crystal clear to me.

He threw away my wedding gown five years after I was married. He said, ''Of course I threw it away. Why would I keep it? You're never going to wear it again." I was so angry with him, over an out-of-date, now too small, probably-would-have-yellowed-in-the-closet-anyway wedding dress.

It was just a dress.

This was crystal clear, too.

So why, having seen the big picture clear and sharp and practically close-captioned, am I sighing and tapping my foot and fretting over things, which -- a week from now, never mind a year from now -- I won't remember? A snowstorm that was just an inconvenience. A canceled flight. An is-this-ever-going-to-be-finished home improvement project.

My father's favorite book the last few years of his life was ''Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." I gave it to him. He liked it better than he liked the sheets. He took it everywhere he went and read it while waiting in doctor's offices, while waiting in line at the Market Basket, and while waiting for me to call. He read it so often that the binding broke. He punched holes in the margins and transferred it into a loose-leaf binder. He also underlined his favorite parts: ''Surrender to the Fact that Life Isn't Fair." ''Remember, One Hundred Years from Now, All New People." ''Become More Patient. Don't Interrupt Others or Finish Their Sentences."

He was still working on the patient thing when he died -- waiting to feel better, wishing he could sit in traffic and pay $2 for a bad cup of coffee.

What I know now? What I've learned, but what I have to remind myself every day, is that life lessons aren't something you memorize like 2-times-2 or ''Four score and seven years ago" and that's it.

Life lessons -- stay calm, be patient, don't sweat the small stuff -- fade. You have to relearn them again and again.

Things happen that make you learn. You love. And you know that nothing else matters.