I’m stealing this idea from my sister. It’s her recently adopted mantra. Every time she starts to get a little bunged up because something isn’t going the way she’d imagined it she repeats this phrase – “It doesn’t have to be my way.”
She shared this with me and I’ve begun to chant it to myself as well. It has a very nice rhythm and the refrain soothes the savage beast inside me that formerly insisted that it did indeed have to be my way.
What’s so wonderful about having installed this belief in my mind is that my brain is finally able to wrap itself around the idea that somebody else might have a better idea and even if they don’t it doesn’t really matter. How great is that?
I mean – does the centerpiece really have to be in the center of the table? Must the reports be stapled on the top left corner? Is it critical that Susan from Accounting sit next to Jemma from Human Resources or can the two of them be separated just this once? Is the sun going to wither and die if we don’t have the traditional cranberry sauce – the kind that slides out of a can with its own rings intact - this Thanksgiving?
At the next family gathering, sales meeting or planning event, when your mind begins to wander and you find yourself at the “Are these people idiots?” buffet, try switching off the mental agonizer and switching on the replay button for “It doesn’t have to be my way” and see if you don’t calm right down.
Suddenly, the planets align, harmony falls over the unruly crowd and a glimmer of hope begins to win out that the family will not end up in a verbal Armageddon or the sales meeting might actually come up with some new ideas. And even if the world isn’t completely perfect, you are no longer a part of the anguish.
There now, doesn’t that feel good?
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