Book Report – Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff by Richard Carlson, PH.D

More often than we want to admit, we live our lives as if we were always in crisis. It will not take long until we truly believe that everything really is an emergency.

The author, Richard Carlson, PH. D, has one hundred specific strategies that we can use to avoid creating an “ongoing emergency lifestyle”. I have chosen just a few topics; the ones that I believe would help all of us the most as an organization.

Become more patient. Patience is a learned quality, and with some practice you can successfully master this art. The more patient we become, the more we accept what it is instead of keep trying to accomplish what we think should be. Patience involves in opening your heart to the present moment, even when we don’t like it. Patience adds a dimension of ease and acceptance to your life and will allow you to enjoy many moments that used to be frustrating.

Surrender to the fact that life isn’t fair. When we believe life should or will be fair, we tend to waste a lot of time complaining about all that is going sideways in our lives, instead of appreciating what is going great! The nice thing about accepting the fact that life isn’t and will not be fair keeps us from feeling sorry about ourselves and instead encourages us to do our very best.

See the glass as already broken (and everything else too) The author uses the basics of this Buddhist teaching to show how everything in life is subject to a constant state of change. When you expect something to break, you are not at all surprised when it does. Everything has a beginning and an end, so instead of becoming upset when something is destroyed you feel grateful for the time you had it. When we have this awareness, we will find ourselves keeping our cool and appreciating life as never before.

Smile at strangers, look into their eyes and say “Hello” This is one of my favorite parts of this book. When we think of strangers as being more like us, and we are kind and respectful to others, we start noticing a positive change in our attitude towards our daily lives and ourselves. When we understand that we all are doing the best with the circumstances that surround us, a profound feeling of inner happiness becomes part of us.

This book was refreshing in many ways, and I believe sometimes we need to have a reminder of how many things are actually small stuff.

I hope you get the chance to read it and apply the concepts explained by the author, and eventually we could all discover a deeper feeling of inner peace.