Surrendering and Letting Go

I made the choice a long, long time ago not to be too bothered by the things other people say and do to me. (Do something stupid and its another story, I will talk about it endlessly.) So much of conversation and human interaction is a combination of posturing and thinking through ideas out loud. Do we even remember half the things we say to each other each day? Three-fourths?

Its made it easy to maneuver through life without getting too offended or hurt or caught up in what other people think. I care about what I think. Honestly, unless you are a family member or close friend, it would be hard to hurt my feelings because comments or opinions made by anyone else don't hold much water.

Great, Amanda, who cares?

Midway through the summer I finally allowed myself to let go and surrender something I have been holding onto: the ability to stress and freak about future actions, events and other things beyond my control. I'm not sure how to illustrate it, besides saying I just decided to stop caring so much about what I can't influence and more importantly, stopped beating myself up about it/them.

Its not the I don't care, I'm just being choosier about what I spend my mental energy dealing with. I'm letting the other stuff go. Its been great.

I chose time with Micky (do you like his art installation? I had no hand in it, he made it while trying to get me to play fetch with him.) I chose family time, bike rides, swimming in the lake and laughing. I chose not to feel bad about the laundry [insert whatever] I didn't do. I chose to voice my concern about what stressed me out, then blew it away like a dandelion gone to seed.