So this happened to my friend Joyce. Maybe it’s happened to you too. She was returning from her Big Haul at Sam’s the other day. She slammed on the brakes. Perched at the top of one of her sacks was a huge container of cherry tomatoes (some of you smart people know where this is going).
Those cherry tomatoes went EVERYWHERE! Maybe for you it was strawberries, or blueberries or horrors, broken eggs! Joyce spent the rest of the afternoon collecting those little tomatoes from every corner and crevice of her new car. Except. Except there was one stubborn cherry tomato under the driver’s seat that refused to budge. In fact the redness went deeper and deeper under the seat. She refused to let the tomato win and she didn’t want her brand-new car smelling like a garbage truck either. But Joyce is smart. She retrieved a shish kebab stick and tried to stab the little sucker into submission. Alas, it rolled further and further away. Joyce had to take her car into the dealership and they had to remove the driver’s seat to retrieve that pesky tomato. It cost her over $100. Now that is one expensive container of tomatoes.
We were exposed to this concept as children. Remember the Princess and the Pea? Our dear Princess was refused sleep because of the ever- so- tiny Pea under her mattress.
It got me thinking about Joyce’s dilemma. How many times do we LET the little things in our life become problematic? Maybe we are faced with two choices and we are racked with indecision. Or maybe we have a certain amount of time and we try to do everything within that timeframe to the point that it all gets done – BADLY. Or maybe it’s a simple menial task like opening the mail which has built up over a couple of days (Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.) Was there a bill or just Talbot’s catalogs?
Sometimes we wait so long our choices go away. We agonize. We overthink. It may be over purchasing two flattering dresses. Instead of bringing joy, the decision ties us up in knots (I love the way the waistline falls on this one but I LOVE the color of the other one. (Hint: go with the color that looks best on you.)
Or we have this gorgeous block of time and errands a mile long. We do them all but we are late for everything else “trying to get it ALL in”. We work ourselves up into a frenzy. We almost have a meltdown (Anybody with me?).
Instead of being happy with two great choices and having a lovely block of time to run errands, we try to do too much. We let our frustration kill our joy. Each day gives us a chance to do it better. To embrace our joy. Think about this: instead of a little tomato it could be a little lump. Hey, Joyce, I will go open the mail looking for bills if you tie up your tomatoes in a bag. Unless, of course, you WANT your car to smell like a garbage truck.
#EnjoyYourLife
Leslie XO
Leslie Hooton Inc. 