Minding too much

I heard a great phrase recently and it started me thinking about how lots of little things can have a massive impact, particularly on well-being. The phrase was “minding too much” – how we can get just a bit too bothered by very small stuff, often out of habit. Do you mind too much about small things? Once I started to think about this, I realised that there were quite a few things about which I minded a bit too much: cars blocking the Keep Clear part of a road junction near my house, and other people’s noise in general were the main ones (I could go on). This was totally unproductive and a bit toxic: I was starting to expect things to annoy me, and was almost waiting for them to happen to prove that yes, they are annoying. When I heard about minding too much, it really resonated with me.

​So there began the questioning of myself: was it really that bad and was I minding too much? Turns out that I was (obviously). Asking myself whether something matters all that much, in the big scheme of things, helps to keep perspective and not get so bothered by small stuff. Of course, some things still bother me, but these are things that really matter to me, so I will keep them on the go – as it’s not about losing passion for things, just about not getting so worked up over things that were actually just old habits that no longer do anything useful.