Burdened Over Little Stuff
Why do we get so bothered over little things?
Why do we skip the big stuff and get carried away with dealing with the little ones?
Questions with ambiguous answers.
Well, for one, there are certain areas of life where dealing or sealing up the little things in the form of loopholes or problems goes a long way to mending that thing in its entirety.
The second reason may be because of our quest for perfection.
The level of pettiness that is damaging is when we forget to look at the big picture and hence, overlook all the tad details.
There’s a fine line between being analytical from fussiness, and that is in the ability to break down things in an articulative way — with the former, in contrast to obsessing over little things or details — for the latter.
When we feel the urge to check that last piece of the essay the nth time, or re-read that piece of the article the whole day the next day in the bid to find slight or minor errors, or refuse to rest until the last bit of work is summarized, let’s not forget that we’re burning energy where we might be needing to optimize it — for better things.
Quest for perfection drains our energy. Energy that can be put elsewhere to generate more input of good, or valuable output.
Quest for perfection is a sign of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) where your brain continues to signal you to focus or dissipate your attention and energy into something, mostly mundane, in an excessive exhausting manner.
Quest for perfection is when you refuse to grow out of your comfort zone. To take ‘good’ risks that may eventually become a better way of living. But you wouldn’t know and that’s because you aren’t willing to try in the first place.
Quest for perfection is when you allow what you ought to be in charge of, in lieu, take total control of you. You want to include that last fine line of your assignment in the most exhaustive way possible rather than take a break already — as though you’ll be heavily penalized for it if you didn’t.
Fussiness leaves you stuck in a rut. The more satisfaction you think you derived from accomplishing a task to the minutiae, the more you want to keep on with it.
To relieve your mind and body of such stress you must first acknowledge that it’s a problem. That you’re in dire need of perfecting everything that concerns you, your work, your living space, and maybe your life — to be able to grow out of it.
You need to acknowledge the reason you deem it fit to obsess over the little things and figure a way out to obstruct that thought pattern.
Questions pertaining to your probability of being scared. Perhaps you’re scared if you don’t engage in that rigorous mundane clean-up, you won’t be satisfied that your space is clean although it’s thoroughly so. Or perhaps you’re afraid that one last fine statement that you include in your article makes it all more readable, presentable and makes you appear smarter.
Leave things as is.
Learn to acknowledge that not everything needs to be perfect, fine, and checked. Mixture of ups and downs, good and bad, pros and cons, are so for a reason. It’s okay to feel good and then the bad; hot and then cold; happy and then restless. It’s okay to miss a workout and make another; miss training and replace it with an alternative. Not everything has to be set apace, go over-stake, or on-point. Sometimes messy is good. Risky is good.
This mixture is what makes it thrilling and produces the muse for the action in the first place. When you have been down before, you enjoy the feeling of being up. When you’ve taken risks before and it worked, you’ll feel the joy of having not when you couldn’t. When you lose money, you’ll understand the joy more when you regain it the same or another way. Leave things as is. This will trigger a state of bliss. No Disturbia.
All you can do is observe. When your brain keeps firing the signals to your nerves to go on a whim out of joy or moodiness, to act out or do other little unnecessary stuff, be mindful.
Recognize the thoughts, observe the feeling, and replace the patterns of behavior exhibited thus. Even if replacement serves to completely abolish it.
Essentially, there’s no reason why you should be troubled by little things. Allowing your beautifully crafted creative self wallow in the imagination of things that aren’t real. Going over the perfect finish to something you haven’t begun or that is good enough already.
Perfection stomps growth and resourcefulness because you become paralyzed in what you know best that you don’t step out to see what better options could be out there for you.
In such mild situations ask yourself what the true reason for exhibiting such behavior is. The reason you choose to ignore that everything is already okay as is — in your relationship, workplace, and other personal aspects— and adore everything as is, in its entirety. Why not?
Could it be due to fear? Because fear forms part of that imagination. The kind that allows you to imagine things you’d swear are real but unfortunately are only figments of your imagination.
Where your mind goes your thoughts follow, where your thoughts go, your heart goes, and thus, your actions — as stipulated by many teachings .
Fear lies in between the mind — prior to conceiving your thoughts. That’s the reason why you must be mindful.
Find out the cause and think about imploring some of the suggested professional therapies that have been found to alleviate OCD — in recapitulation to being burdened over little stuff, pettiness, and fussiness.
There’s so much in life to be burdened over little stuff. See the bigger picture.
Take care of yourself. Take care of your mind. Take care of your thoughts. Take care of your life.
