Do you suffer from loose ends? That is, nagging tasks and unfinished business that you can’t seem to get off your plate?
Apparently, there are people who don’t find this bothersome. Their outlook is that whatever needs to be handled will be handled at some point, so there’s no sense fretting about it in the meantime. Sounds sensible, doesn’t it?
Then there are the rest of us. We who would like to have the peace that comes from knowing that everything is handled. The tasks are done, decisions are made, the files are tidy, and the people in our lives are as we want them to be. Life is in order. What a state that would be, eh?
While both perspectives have pros and cons, what can you do if you find loose ends troubling?
Some months ago, I read a post by Dr. Joel Wade called “How to Worry Effectively.” He wrote that we tend to get what we can control and what we can’t control mixed together in our minds. It’s helpful to separate them. How? He suggested one of my favourite approaches: write them down.
It must have been a slow day (or I was looking for an excuse to avoid work) so I did just that. I made a list of loose ends that were irritating me at the time. Actually, I made two lists; the loose ends that I could do something about and the loose ends over which I had no control.
Time went by. That slip of paper got misplaced. Months later, it resurfaced. How do those loose ends look now?
There were surprises! I had, in fact, dealt with many of the loose ends on the “can control” side of the list. Not all of them mind you, but quite a few. Things had to be done, which meant I had to deal with them. So I did.
The second surprise involved the “can’t control” side. I realized that many of those items are also resolved now. How did that happen?
Those “can’t control” loose ends had common threads: they either required time to pass or other people to act.
Well, time had passed, and simply because time had passed, things happened. Other people had, in fact, acted. Tasks over which I had no control had finished or at least progressed.
I also noticed that many of the “can’t control” items started with, “I can’t predict…” For example, I can’t predict whether it will be an easy or difficult winter. I can’t predict whether someone will follow through on a promise, whether the dog will get sick, the new boss will be reasonable, or the problem will be solved. While there may be small steps I can take to lessen potential bad results, these non-predictable loose ends are out of my control.
I still can’t predict what will happen in future. However, some of those unpredictable loose ends are becoming clearer as time goes on.
Just because many items on my list were resolved doesn’t mean that I now have no loose ends! No, no! If I were to write a similar list again today, it would be chock-full. But it would hold different loose ends, for this different time.
However, it’s satisfying to see that many of last year’s troubling loose ends did get resolved. It adds perspective and hope. We can make progress!
Dr. Wade suggests concentrating on the “can control” side of the list. Decide on small steps that we can take to make progress on them. If you’d like to read the Joel Wade post for yourself, let me know
