I am easily irritated by many things, especially when they seemingly get in the way of my list of items I want to complete in one day. Don’t get in the way of my grocery cart and make sure you use your turn signal if you’re going to cut me off in traffic.
But I have learned to take a step back when what feels like continued derailment of my day is wreaking havoc with everything I want to accomplish. I have also learned to take a step back when someone irritates me. Or when people in my life react in unexpected negative ways.
While I might not like it, there is always a reason that things are unfolding the way that they are. I might not understand it now, or even in the next ten years, but I believe at some point I will get it when I reflect back in the rearview mirror.
Thinking that way has made it easier for me to cope with many situations and also to remember that we’re all navigating something in life and not to take it out on others (well, except when you blatantly cut me off in traffic and I’m driving faster than you– but maybe we’ll address that another day– I usually try to move on by turning up the radio and singing along with an eighties station).
I also have learned that somehow the list gets completed. Maybe not on my schedule but clearly someone else’s– let me poke the sky at the universe for that one.
In the meantime, often the best we can do is roll along and remember that a step backward is really several steps forward in own growth. There is much we can’t control in our lives, except our on reactions. That’s where taking a step backward matters the most because eventually– by doing that– we’ll be taking two steps forward instead of anything backward at all.