There’s not much these days that gets under my skin. For the most part, I take things in stride. I guess I’m learning — slowly — that things have a way of working out.

Remember this post from the other day? Remember how excited I was about that discovery? Well, lo and behold, today I noticed the Colored. Bars. ARE. GONE.

Now the problem came when I jumped to an erroneous conclusion. Someone suggested that I was working too fast (with not enough accuracy) and part of that conversation referenced the colored bars. And so the problem was then exacerbated when I took it personally. (Girl, see Agreement 2 of The Four Agreements.)

Once you jump to a conclusion and take things personally, it’s harder to “let it be.” Harder to say and mean, “perfect, what’s next?” Hard to remember “yes, and.”

As a matter of fact, the experience of jumping and taking creates an almost tangible thing that you have to carry around with you. What I was carrying was a black bag, possibly full of cats. The bag was moving an awful lot. Like someone was inside punching outward. Or the cats were trying to escape.

So now we have not only the jump to the conclusion and the taking it personally, we now also have this black bag requiring attention and physical presence to keep from dropping the jumping thing.

Finally, the official word comes back. No one knew the bars were gone and they had most likely disappeared during the most recent software update.

No one was targeting my speed. No one was trying to impact my work. NO ONE WAS EVEN THINKING ABOUT ME AT ALL!

And while I could immediately drop the erroneous conclusion and realize it wasn’t about me (AS PER USUAL!), the black bag remained for awhile as the cats slunk out one by one.

That silver lining though. When I decided they were targeting me (ludicrous, I know), I decided to switch out of super-efficient mode into more of an “ok, I will do it your way, precisely, to the letter.” I stopped doing all the little tricks I do to more efficiently and went back to the job exactly as it was designed.

I like being efficient, but I discovered after a few hours that my little tricks have been contributing to the stress of my job, something about which I have been worrying lately.

I love this work, but I don’t love what it does to me physically. Always feeling pressured, always revved up inside, skipping breaks, and allowing the adrenaline to be a raging river within.

When I simply gave up, simply submitted to doing it as designed, the stress went away. I’m looking forward to my next shift when I won’t have to juggle the black bag and can just calmly do the job without worrying about anything.

And who knows — maybe the colored bars will return at some point. Whether they do or don’t I’ll be fine. They were a fun little puzzle to solve on every item, and therefore were a pleasurable part of the day, but I learned that I will be fine without them.

“Yes” the bars are gone, “and” look what came out of that!

Joyfully,

Siouxs