Questions to Help Let Go and Lower Your Blood Pressure

So much of what bothers you doesn’t matter

I can’t believe you’d even say that.

There are different types of wrongs or circumstances that arise in our lives that cause us to get mad, be afraid, react emotionally or demand action. There may be a person that speaks or acts against your understanding of how the world ought to work. Something may be out of order in your home or finances, and you need to get it off the check list. Society might present itself out of wack when compared to your worldview. You might feel cheated or without a voice.

I was in the car with some people driving across the country, and I was starving. Deep in my soul was a hankering for a hot dog. Just a really good hot dog. We pulled off the highway into one of those Podunk towns with a handful of fast food/gasoline choices.

There was nothing there for me. KFC wouldn’t do the job, and who ever eats at a Love’s? Frustration loomed.

I got on the expressway and pulled off a second time 2 miles later. Nothing. Frustration grew. After the third pull off, the passenger thoughtfully and kindly said to me, “Why don’t you just stop and get one of those Speedway hot dogs?” How could they be so stupid?

Writing this hurts my heart because I hate remembering it. I punched the steering wheel and shouted, “I don’t want a freaking Speedway hot dog!”

And that hurt my passenger a lot.

Life is a big deal, and so many things demand our emotional capital. Hot dogs shouldn’t be one of them.

I won’t impose upon the reader my opinion of which things are worthy of spending emotional capital, but I will raise the thought to you that we ought to, at the very least, consider this transaction in our lives.

These 8 questions might help when the demand of the wrong grabs our attention:

1. How does this affect me or other innocent standers-by? Will it kill you? Seriously. Is this that big of a deal? Doubtful. Turn off the news for a minute. Jot yourself a to do list and put in on your calendar to get it off your mind. Ignore the stupid comment. Whatever it is, just think, compared to someone in the next room having a bomb that will explode imminently, how much does this affect anything?
2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how big of a wrong is this? So, is this thing an “I think I forgot to grab my headphones” problem, or an “I think I forgot to take my son out of the oven” problem? Can you see the difference? A 1 on the scale demands nothing. A 10, yea, maybe a little more haste. Most of what we hear/face/experience is a 2–4 that needs to either be ignored or put on the reminder list so we can focus on tackling it at the appropriate time.
3. If it’s a 10, so what? So, let’s say it’s a 10. So what? When my entire life hit the crap fan and the crap hit the crap walls and there was just crap everywhere, there was little I could really do. 10’s are often beyond our control. Here, we have to commit to doing what we can, taking our time, accepting the outcome and moving on. You won’t leave the country if XXX wins an election, so calm the heck down.
4. Can I co-exist if this wrong exists? When Josie from the office says, “Mine as well,” instead of “might as well”, it makes my eye twitch. So I have to ask myself, can I live in a world where this grammar ignorance exists? Will I miss out on the clouds and the breeze and playing with my kids because she’s clearly a bit of a doofus? Can I enjoy dinner even if someone forgot the diet soda? I think so.
5. Can the person/people causing the wrong be honest and good people? Does Black Lives Matter burn your butt? Do climate change deniers blow your mind? Can the guy that cut you off be frustrated because he too has a 2–4 level problem, and he’s taking it out on traffic? Don’t be angry. Don’t be frustrated. Show a lot of mercy to people. You may need it one day.
6. Why do I get so angry? That’s all I’ll say here. Think about it. Why did the suggestion for a Speedway Hot Dog make me so angry. No…don’t comment on the passenger here. Why do I get so angry?
7. What really bothers me about this? We aren’t actually bothered about whether or not we left the check on the counter, right? We’re worried about something else. We aren’t really upset that the kids spilled milk. Something else is bothering me. Chris Hitchens’ comment on religion didn’t really upset me. Maybe I’m afraid he’s right, and I have to look deeper to find out why I hold to my faith.
8. How valuable is the act of response I’m about to make? Note that I didn’t say how valuable is fixing the problem. I’m speaking only of the response. The freak out. The worry. The anger. How valuable is it to my health and other people’s emotions? I can say that yelling about a hot dog has cost me much much more than the value of telling the other person that they gave me a bad idea.

When you’re anywhere in the 1–10 range, there’s a great sentence that will probably upset people that have this very problem with intensity. It overcompensates. Take a bent stick and try to straighten it. You’ll have to bend it beyond straight. Bend it back in the other direction so that it finds a median closest to straight.

It doesn’t really matter.

Say it. It doesn’t really matter.

Tell as many little things as you can that they don’t matter, and I promise we’ll both save ourselves to enjoy more fully the things that do.