Sweating the “Small Stuff”, the large stuff and everything in between

Who hasn’t been agitated that they’ve dropped the ball on something? Who hasn't been too hard on themselves? I think this is a common trait of conscientious people. And conscientiousness is a trait of teachers in general.

Let’s face it - it’s rare that we make the kinds of errors that have profound adverse effects. Why are we so hard on ourselves? The world likely won’t come to an end because some error you’ve made. Why hold ourselves to a standard of perfection that doesn’t leave room for our human failings?

Someone no doubt will accuse me of spiraling down the slippery slope of laziness. Tell people to be easy on themselves for forgetting to return a phone call and before long they’ll be amputating the wrong limb in surgery!

That’s not dropping the ball.
That’s negligence, incompetence, systemic organizational dysfunction.
There’s a difference.

I bet that if you look back at ‘dropping the ball’ episodes in your life they were rarely of an earth shattering magnitude. When it comes to things of importance, most of us are on the ball! What many of us stress over are the inconvenient events that can be made-up for with a simple plan of action and an apology, forgiven with a bit of understanding, or taken as a lesson and moving on.

I’m not sure if it’s that we “sweat the small stuff” or that we don’t clearly differentiate between what small stuff is and what important stuff is. Failing to read a memo clearly is dropping the ball and nothing to beat yourself up about. Never reading a memo because you just can’t be bothered is a problem.

If we never dropped the ball we’d never get a chance to kick it…and honestly a good swift kick at an inanimate object can be a good de-stressor!