Family Daze
Somebody has to sweat the small stuff for everybody else
By Debbie Farmer
Lately I've been thinking about the phrase "don't sweat the small stuff." For those of you lucky enough to never have heard it before, it's taken from a philosophy that believes, if you don't let life's little annoyances bother you, your life will be calm and carefree.
On the surface this may seem a reasonable assumption, but what I want to know is, if no one sweats the small stuff, then who will keep the rest of us in line? Oh, I know that this is not what that theory intended. However, I've always felt better knowing that someone out there is organizing the world--being on time for appointments, and generally upholding the structure of modern civilized society--while I'm busy trying to find my car keys.
I mean, can you imagine, say, a laid-back traffic cop?
"Gee, I'm sorry for speeding, officer," I'd say. "But, you see, it's really not my fault. The other cars were going so slowly that they made me look fast. Besides, 80 miles an hour is below the average speed in most European countries."
"You're absolutely right, ma'am. Don't worry yourself over it one bit. I can see that you were doing your personal best to try to follow the law."
Your first impression might be that this isn't such a bad way to do things, but before long, word would get out and our streets would be full of drivers almost stopping at red lights, or sort of having a license.
But that's not all. What would happen to our economy if bank tellers didn't sweat the small stuff?
"Well, Mrs. Farmer, from what I can make out on the computer I think your checkbook balance is somewhere between and $7.83 and $78,300, depending on where I move the decimal. Take your pick."
On top of that, what if an unruffled air traffic controller told pilots not to worry about following all those tedious safety measures and just land the plane "somewhere over there"?
On the other hand, we couldn't have a world made up of only perfectionists, either. Granted everything would be much more efficient since people wouldn't have to deal with such things as mystery piles or catch-all drawers, but we'd all be too busy organizing socks by alphabetical order and rotating leftovers to get out of the house to have any fun. However, we would save a lot of time never looking for things such as Tupperware lids or matching socks. Or car keys.
Of course, while some people go through life consistently as one type of personality, others ping-pong back and forth between the two. For example, take my friend, Nancy, who lets her children dig mud trenches in the backyard with their bare hands, but who goes berserk if her daughter's Barbie dolls aren't dressed in color-coordinated outfits with matching shoes. And it's not just Nancy. My husband, whose idea of organizing tools is tossing them into the garage and closing the door really fast, gets testy if all of the coffee cups are not lined up in perfect rows in the dishwasher.
Oh, I realize that it's not all that simple and some people can't be categorized into neat little personality types. But let's face it: In order for our society to work, there will always be some people who are organized and punctual, and others who store their car keys in the coffee cup behind the stack of papers on the dining room table. And you know who you are.
Naturally, the only solution is to try to get along the best that you can. As a matter of fact, the next time my husband asks me to be more careful loading the dishwasher, I'll just nod, then head straight into the garage to sort out his pile of 2-by-4s and his rusty nail collection.
Sometimes that's the best way.
Debbie Farmer is the author of Life in the Fast-Food Lane: Surviving the Chaos of Parenting. Email her at paradigmnews@familydaze.com.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
