Last week, my son Evan started the 3^rd grade, and my daughter Rylee started the 4^th grade.  After hearing about their first days of school, all kinds of memories came flooding back.  I remember the 4^th grade like it was yesterday.  My family moved from Bethel, Connecticut, where I had been raised, to Corpus Christi, Texas.  Talk about a culture shock!

I remember walking into Mrs. Garcia’s classroom completely unsure about pretty much everything.  I remember wanting to fit in with the popular kids and having a huge crush on a little boy named Daren.  It is amazing to me how much I remember about the smallest details, from my new hot pink purse (Ah, the 80s) to the plastic jelly shoes that left huge blisters on my feet but were incredibly fashionable.

What I can’t remember are all of the things that I worried about, which I can assure you, at the time seemed like life altering decisions and issues.  I can’t remember the things that kept me up at night and the choices that I labored over making.

It’s amazing how much time and energy we spend worrying about things that won’t matter in 10 days, let alone 1o-years. We put ourselves through complete torture for things that really just aren’t that
important.  Why?  The worrying and stress certainly aren’t helping to make a more informed decision.

What decisions and issues are you currently agonizing over?  Will they matter in a week, a year, or a decade?  If not, let it go and relax.  Chances are, whatever you decide will work out just fine.  If the decision does have lasting consequences, worrying and stressing most certainly won’t lead to a better decision, it will just suck the emotional energy right out of you.

It sure is fun watching my kids grow up and taking trips down memory lane.  While they might be the ones in school, they are my teachers.