What to worry about, and what not to

A big difference between me and Suzanne is that I actively try to avoid worry. I really hate having even fairly small things hanging over my head, so I've gradually evolved the three rules of worry:

1. If you can do something about it right now, do it and don't worry about it.
   
2. If you can't do anything about it until some time in the future, then do it at that time and don't worry about it in the interim.
   
3. If you can never do anything about it, don't worry about it.
   

So far, there's very little that doesn't fit under one of these three rules. Almost anything from laundry to the "war on terror" fits in there, and just about everything in between.

The main exceptions to this exist in situations where you, in order to dispel something that worries you, have to depend on someone else to assist you in the resolution and that person or entity doesn't share the same urgency toward results that you do. In effect, you've done what you can, whether it's ask this person to do something only they can do, or to call that person and tell them information that updates their situation, but if they don't get off their ass, the clock sort of stops. I can't imagine what it must have been like in the former Soviet Union, where you ended up depending on lard-ass bureaucrats for even some very basic things and you were stuck with waiting until they actually did it.

Nevertheless, this has spared me a lot of wasted energy this summer.

I got another award today! After years of nothing, suddenly my employer has been popping up with rewards in rather surprising fashion. I can think of two things I can pay off right away. Oh, and a couple of hundred bucks I owe in state taxes. Pogh.