The positively unhealthy 1% ....

Everyone has their doubts about choices made in their lives. No matter what you do there is always that 1% of doubt. But that small 1% causes us the most grief. We will analyze and analyze the situation over and over. To be truthful we will analyze it the death. Why do we let something so small rule our lives? It seems very silly when you look at the situation as a whole because there is nothing in anyone’s live that is guaranteed. Now that doesn’t mean you should wear black at night and walk down the middle of the road or take careless chances but how much worrying is healthy. Remember that worrying needlessly could be a big health risk. The more you worry the greater the stress and for some reason worries seem to build on worries. Sometimes we let those worries and doubts get out of control then all of a sudden the 1% has taken over our lives.

Now there have been many occasions when I have let the 1% get the best of me. That doesn’t mean that I let it control my final decision but it was there nipping at my heels. Quite a few years ago not long after my divorce the car I had died. I worried and worried. My daughter would be home from college the next week and there would be no car.  I cried and cried there were so many questions and so many unknowns. Would I be able to get a loan, how does one even go about buying a car? I took the process one step at a time. I called my two banks to see if I would even qualify for a loan as I had my doubts and waited nervously for them to call back. When they said yes I started looking for a car and with that came more doubts. The choices, there were just too many choices. When I had narrowed down the choices, with the help of my teen age sons and knew what I wanted it was time to start the real shopping. I had a coworker take me on my lunch hour to the local car dealer for a test run at dealing with the sales person. I was hyperventilating all the way there. I recited the lines I had been practicing and made it through the test run. 

With my sons in tow we set off on that Saturday to the first car lot. This was the same place I had practiced just a few days ago. Now I knew from my research that they really couldn’t give me the things they promised but I thought we should see what they could come up with. So there we sat in the office and haggling over the price. Back and forth they went from us to another office and back several times. The next time they left I looked at my boys and said, “If they don’t come back with a deal we are walking out!” When they came back without the deal and only more haggling we got up I said thank you and we left. I have never seen two such shocked men in my live. We left, drove to the next dealer, told them our story and a new car we came home with. To this day it is the boys’ favorite story to tell about their mother. If I had let that 1% of doubt rule my life and control my choices we would still be without a car.

Most of the decisions we make fall into that 99%. We have to learn and sometimes remind ourselves not to let the 1% over take our lives. Think about the last time you second guessed yourself only to realize to late that you were correct the first time? Learn to trust yourself and the choices you make.  Yes occasionally they will be wrong but if you really look at all your choices you make every day I think you will find that 99% of the time you have made positively healthy choices. So the next time doubt creeps into your life look around and see if it is that positively unhealthy 1% creeping in instead of the positively healthy 99%.