What if You Didn’t Have to Worry About Yourself?

By Leo Babauta Have you ever had people annoy you at work? Or maybe family members whose little habits bothered you? Have you been frustrated by a store clerk or waiter, or maybe another driver? What about frustration with your kid, or spouse? How can we become more tolerant, find calm in the middle of all of these annoyances and frustrations? For me, when I remember, the answer lies in getting outside of myself. Nearly every moment of every day of our entire lives (more than 20 million seconds for me) is spent worrying about ourselves. We are preoccupied by concern about ourselves: am I doing the right thing, will I mess this up, will I be able to meet deadline, what do other people think of me, am I good enough, why is this happening to me, how can I get better, why don’t people listen to me, why don’t they treat me better, why can’t they get out of my way, why is my body so fat, why don’t things go my way, am I missing out on things? But what if we were freed of this worry about ourselves? What if, for a little while, we could assume our selves were being taken care of, comforted and protected and accepted? What if we could stop this Thinking About Self for awhile, and do something else? Wouldn’t this be a bit liberating? Wouldn’t it be nice to get free of this preoccupation that has taken up our entire lives? I, for one, welcome this opportunity. So what happens when we are freed of worrying about ourselves? We can now start l...
Source: Zen Habits - Category: Life Coaches Authors: Tags: Happiness Source Type: blogs