Some people are going to disagree with me.
Some people are going to say that my point of view is the most depressing thing they’ve ever heard and I get it, I totally get it, but just take a minute to try my perspective on and see what you think.
It’s five thirty in the morning, your three year old doesn’t understand daylight savings time and is smiling at the side of your bed because his internal clock is saying that it’s actually SIX thirty. You silently swear and roll out of bed. There’s trips to the potty to make and your youngest begins to stir too, her internal clock hates you as well now. You have a million things to get done before the sun sets and these days the sun is setting earlier and earlier. There are snacks for preschool classes to make, mountains of dirty laundry to wash and fold, meals to make, bills to pay, things to baby proof, post baby weight to loose, more bills to pay and never ending worries for the future of your children to address.
All of these things take up a special spot in a parents brain on on a daily basis. One little shift and the dam holding back the anxiety can give way and you can find yourself in one heck of a mental avalanche. I’ve been there more times than I care to even try to count. But there’s a very simple trick that has helped me and it might help you, but only if you can see it the right way.
Look to the stars.
Look at them and think about how small you and your problems are in the vast scheme of the universe. The universe doesn’t care if you’ve made zombie fingers out of celery or how much of that mountain of laundry you have or haven’t done that day. Nope, the universe just keeps on being the universe, vast and incomprehensible. It gives me great comfort to know that my actions mean nothing, absolutely nothing in the enormous scale of things and that we are, in fact, tiny ants or perhaps even smaller in this machine that we have found ourselves a cog in.
But, yet, there will be those who view this perspective as bleak and the depressing. That if we are so tiny and our actions mean nothing than why care at all.
What does it matter? Human life has no meaning.
And this is where I see the glass as half full. We are small, but also a miracle at the same time. As far as we know there is no life on other planets and our existence, whether or not you believe it was God or science that saw fit to put us here, is amazing.
To me, the fact that we are allowed to exist here, breath air, have relationships, even have the technology that is allowing you to read this blog right now is incredible.
Yet, everyday we, including myself, forget and we find ourselves tricking our minds into thinking that if “Little Jimmy” isn’t wearing matching socks or if he has a stain on his shirt when he goes to school, the world will literally end.
Here’s the thing, it won’t. The world and the universe around it doesn’t care. “Little Jimmy” will go to school with one blue sock on and one red sock and it doesn’t matter. Isn’t that that a wonderful thought? Doesn’t that just make you feel more at ease? It always works with me.
