It is only temporary. This was the thought that helped me the other day when I was feeling particularly stressed and anxious. I had this light bulb moment, when I realized that the problems which cause my anxiety are almost always temporary. Many stressful situations are time limited and so is our anxiety. Time can be on our side in rewarding us with solutions or choices to most problems we encounter. It also dawned on me that I waste a lot of time fretting and feeling stressed over issues that simply need a bit of time to get through or resolve. In this post I am going to discuss some real-life situations where my “It’s only temporary” mantra has helped me to handle stressful situations with greater ease.

One example which quickly comes to mind was my struggle with technical devices earlier this week. I had written previously on computer stress syndrome  and how I feel it is a real issue in today’s digital world. This time it wasn’t just my computer giving me problems but also my iPad. In some ways these gadgets create more needless complexity in our life instead of making things easier. And subsequently these devices can cause anxiety especially when they aren’t working properly.

I did an update on my iPad (notice how you are constantly being urged to update programs on your devices?) that went horribly wrong and I was left with a blank screen. All my data had been erased and I had to find some way to retrieve it. My computer was being unhelpful by not recognizing any external devices such as my iPad. After fiddling with these things for several hours with no resolution my nerves were beginning to fray. We also have an ancient desktop computer downstairs which is over ten years old now. Amazingly it still does basic functions but is on the extreme slow side. I was having some success with restoring data to my iPad using our technical dinosaur. But this also happens to be the same computer that my son with autism uses for his Disney Magic Artist Studio software which he draws with every day. This drawing program is so old it uses Windows 98.

After an hour of chugging through a restore process for my iPad I went to the bathroom. Big mistake. My son had ripped out the USB cord and all that time was wasted. At this same moment my son was becoming agitated that his drawing program was not running. By sheer coincidence the phone was ringing at the same time. How I wished that I had a pause button for my life at that moment so at least I could deal with one thing at a time. No such luck.

I had been playing phone tag with a doctor’s office all day to find a neurologist for my son. You know how it is: Press one if you are an idiot. Press two if you want to talk to an idiot. Press three for irrelevant information. Press four to leave a message that someone may or may not respond to within an unspecified amount of time. Press five if you are currently pulling out all your hair in frustration. Press six if you have forgotten why you are calling in the first place.