In late August, I indulged in one of my bad, self-sabotaging habits, I began borrowing trouble.
In the times when my troubles are few, I feel Al Bundy’s concern that good luck today will be returned with an equal portion of bad luck tomorrow, so I search out problems to keep the scales in balance.
Near the end of the summer, everything was going really well. Work, family, vacation, everything. So I looked past Labour Day, to when the boys would return to school, a time when I would be saddened because I would have less time to spend with them (last year, the return to school sent me into a depressive spiral so deep it almost ended with me stepping in front of a transport truck).
There was no reason, at all, for me to be sad. So I went looking for one, and found it in the near future.
I have always been future oriented. Being so allows me to plan for the future, to delay gratification so future me is better off than present me. But, if you combine it with my tendency to borrow trouble, I fall into this trap.
Fortunately, I have enough age, experience and time spent in self reflection to know what I was doing. I also know that “This too shall pass.”
Instead of focusing on the potential troubles ahead, I focused closely on the joys of the present.
And the desire to borrow future sorrows into the present day…passed.
