Worry--the guest that no one misses

As long as I can remember, I've been a worrier. A thinker. A planner.

What if X happens? I ask myself. And then I figure out what I'll do.

Sometimes this pays off. Last month, someone asked me how it was that we traveled successfully when our kids were young, and I realized in answering her that most of it could be summed up as, "Luck. And thinking about what could go wrong and finding ways to prevent it from happening."

However, my thinking and planning and worrying usually continues past the point of diminishing returns.

A few months ago, I was thinking and planning and worrying about stress during the last few months of the year. Between cross-country season and fall play and back to school and Spanish and Boy Scouts and my in-laws visiting and my husband traveling and all four kids having birthdays and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas . . . there was a lot of potential stress. How could I have less of it?

I considered the number of commitments on my calendar and realized that I felt comfortable with that aspect of it. My choices had been carefully considered, and they were still right.

And clearly, I couldn't move the birthdays or the holidays.

What to do?

Maybe, I thought, maybe I can do what I need to do without stressing about it.

So I decided to give it a try.

Do the next thing.

Don't force decisions before they have to happen.

Trust it will all work out.

Sufficient to the day is the evil task thereof.

And you know what? It's working.

True, I paid $10 for $5 worth of Halloween candy to arrive at my college student's apartment before November. My husband wisely moved away from the counter and gnashed his teeth in a different part of the post office while I completed that transaction.

And we had a slight hiccup when I missed the deadline for ordering a wreath from my son's school fundraiser.

But you know what? When the wreaths arrived at school, I asked if they happened to have any extra I could purchase. And they did.

So, other than a few dollars' worth of postage that I could have saved, my new don't-stress plan has not had any downsides.

That's a small price to pay for a less-stressed me.