A while back I was having a conversation with a friend when two seemingly disparate topics began to come together in my mind and led me to writing this post.
The first topic we discussed was the same topic everyone has been dealing with the mess that the country is in, from the economy to terrorism to everything else.
The second topic dealt with my car windshield and the fact that it had a crack in it, and has had one for several years.
It was a pretty common story, me driving down the highway, idiot trucker driving ahead of me, chunk of rock tossed in the air and boom, cracked windshield and me liable to pay for it.
In talking about the problem I told my friend that I had adopted the broad view. To begin with the problem was there and I couldn’t do anything to change it. My windshield was broken and I would have to pay to have it replaced or just live with it.
The incident was also not my fault, unlike a fender bender or some other accident there was no way I could be at fault and short of leaving the house at a different time there was nothing I could have done to avoid it.
The problem was also not as bad as it could have been. The rock could have struck the windshield in my line of vision and caused some sort of accident. It could have struck the car itself and caused more expensive body damage. So while it wasn’t a good thing it could have been worse.
So given that it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t do anything to change it, it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and I could handle the cost of fixing it, I decided to take a calmer view of it.
Indeed the windshield has been cracked for a few years now and I just keep ignoring it just for the reasons above.
It occurred to me that it is pretty healthy to apply the same attitude to many of the current problems facing our country.
Yes the economy is a mess, the budget is out of control and heaven only knows what is going on overseas. These are important issues that we need to keep on top of. But at the same time it’s not like we can solve them ourselves.
So while I am certainly not suggesting that we ignore the problem nor should we try and downplay it, I also don’t think we all need to stress out too much. The problem is not in our control, it will be solved and there is nothing we can do to change things.
Keep an eye on the news, make sure to protect your own assets, but for the most part just do your job and live your lives.