I was off from work today to attend a workshop by yoga teacher Rod Stryker. I also had a mission to mail a Christmas package to Tanya in France. I've been so busy with work and teaching that my opportunities to get to the post office were few.
The post office opened at 9, and I wanted to get to the studio by 10. The workshop was going to be packed and I wanted to get a spot by the door so that I could get out easily - I needed to leave to teach a class - a scheduling conflict created by my not paying quite enough attention to things. The walk from home to the studio is a bit under 20 minutes, and the post office is perhaps a 3 minute drive away. So, I had enough time if I didn't get caught in a long line at the post office. To improve my chances, I left home in time to get to the post office by 8:45.
My mind likes to think of things that might go wrong, and as I backed the car out of the drive and headed up the street, I could feel a little tension in my gut. What was my back up plan? If the post office was really slow (and from experience I know it can be slower than you would ever imagine), when would I need to bail out and come home to get to the studio on time? This question, of course, implied that getting to the workshop on time was more important to me than mailing the package this morning. But if I didn't mail the package this morning, when would I be able to? Perhaps I could take some time off work early next week and do it.
All these things went through my mind a time or two before I came to my senses and settled back into the present. Drive to the post office. Go in. Oh, no line. OK, wait for 9. And then a few more minutes - I guess opening at 9 really means they start at 9 getting ready to open. Even being first in line and having the customs form already filled out, mailing a package to France took quite a while, but I was done before 9:15 and made it home with plenty of time to get to the workshop.
Time. It's everywhere, and in everything. Things take time to do. And many important things - the way we organize life - are planned to happen at particular times. I have expectations about how much time things will take, and that leads to anxiety that things will take longer and interfere with subsequent things, especially important, scheduled things.
There's a lot to unpack in that paragraph. What makes something "important?" Are my "expectations" about the time things will take deeper than just an objective estimate? Are they loaded with judgment and attachment? What's the source of the "anxiety?" Why be anxious about something I don't control? Or perhaps an even better question - Why be anxious about things I really do have a lot of control over? Even if my post office plan went awry, there was almost no chance that I would miss the workshop, and it would have been fine to mail the package on another day.
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