Thursday 24 February 2011

Light at the end of the tunnel ...

When I was in school, my headmaster once said, 'Don't worry about the things you cannot control.' This is a sentence that has stuck in my head ever since, and year by year I am more and more convinced as to the truth of it.

However, more recently, I've come to the conclusion that there is a corollary to this. 'Hand the things you cannot control to God, so that He can worry about them.' This becomes more true when one realises that God is always in control, and therefore handing things over to Him hands them into sure hands.

But either way, either of these two sayings can, and should, be applied to daily life - especially life in the workplace. If you're anything like me - a perfectionist - it can become a challenge trying to adapt to constantly changing demands, let alone people who do not carry out their work with the same integrity or completeness as you try to apply to your work. This can lead to intense frustration, and ultimately high levels of stress, caused by constantly questioning others' actions (getting annoyed that they don't match your expectations).

There is always a choice. One can choose to get frustrated, stressed and annoyed (usually an unconscious choice) - or one can choose the opposite - to worry about the things you CAN control (your actions), and hand the rest (others' actions) over to God.