What’s bothering you today?

That question used to capture a lot of my days in the past.

I’ve shared quite a few of those bothers on social media through the years.

There certainly is a lot to be bothered about. If I begin to list them, this post will get very long. So I won’t. (You’re welcome.)

For quite sometime I have been feeling a tug away from the bothers so I can redirect my attention to those things I can do something about. I gained a specific strategy for it a few months ago, and it’s helped me not only to stay sane, but to stay grounded.

If something does bother me, and it persists, and I have personal gifts, means and a sense of calling to find a way to lift the burden toward a solution, I do. Otherwise, I ask myself why I’m letting a particular bother rule my mind, heart and will to the detriment of all three?

Everyone is wired differently. I tend to follow where my curiosity leads me. That can be, and often is, an adventurous journey. Daring, thrilling, and all that. But if I let my curiosity lead me all the time, rather than letting my intentions lead me most of the time, I can get tangled up in several bothers, mostly other people’s bothers, leading me to the same pile of gripes everyone else is talking about. I’ve never found that helpful in achieving an abundant joyful life.

In the early hours of the day, I journal my bothers in a notebook. Not just bothers. I list gratitudes, fleeting ideas, and on-going reflections too. But instead of airing my bothers in public like I used to, unless it is a bother that I can have some agency over, I record them in longhand, and file them away. (400,000 words and counting.)

Of course I break this rule from time to time. I still can’t help taking a dig once in awhile. The daily circus in politics is enough to make you cry, or laugh out loud. Someone has to be the fool, so it might as well be them, right?

What bothers me most days, these precious days I have left to live, is what I choose to look past that is glaring at me, begging me with whimpering eyes for help. I’m getting better though. This week alone, I had two encounters that moved me enough to respond. To respond with kindness. With love. With a little time. The only means I had with me. And they were enough.

For a few brief moments, heaven opened up, the world got a bit brighter, time stood still, and that day’s bothers drained away.