The car looked good as it sat on the used car lot, and the fifteen-minute test drive had gone fine. I paid Express Oil thirty-five bucks to look it over, and the mechanics had given it a clean bill of health. I was concerned about a hesitation and clunk in the automatic transmission, so I figured a transmission rebuild might be necessary. With everything else looking fine, I bought the car and drove it straight to an AAMCO transmission service store. I was right about the transmission and agreed to the two-thousand dollar repair. When I picked the car up a week later, I now had a thousand dollars more in the car than it was worth according to the used car guides. But, I figured with a refreshed transmission, and everything else checking out fine, that was OK.

It was August and afternoon temperatures had been above a hundred degrees for two weeks. I needed to drive out to Sears after picking the car up from AAMCO and the traffic was heavy. I’d been driving for just under twenty minutes when I glanced down and something caught my eye. The temperature gauge. The needle was three-quarters of the way toward the “H.” “H” stands for hot and it’s not good for the needle to be approaching that territory. I watched as it continued to climb ever so slowly. I turned off the air conditioner and that slowed the needle, but it was still rising. Abandoning my trip to Sears, I turned onto the Athens bypass so I could get out of stop and go traffic. With the air conditioner off and the radiator gathering air at speed, the engine temperature cooled somewhat.

I drove around the bypass until I was near AAMCO again. The AAMCO owner said the transmission repair wouldn’t cause an engine to overheat and referred me to Hawthorne Automotive and Robert. After looking at the car, Robert was struggling for words. He made it clear that diagnosing overheating problems was difficult and he could make no promises. The temperature readings from his laser probe indicated it might be a water pump problem. He said, “Parts and labor for installing a water pump and a thermostat runs about three hundred dollars.” He shook his head. “And I can’t guarantee that’ll fix it.” He grimaced again. Clearly, he didn’t want to be responsible for my spending yet more money on this car and being no better off.

“Hey,” I said and waved my hand toward the ground. “I don’t see any blood, Robert. Nobody’s bleeding here. You’re not telling me I have lung cancer and have six months to live. You’re not telling me my child’s brain damaged and won’t recover. You’re telling me I need to spend another three hundred dollars to see if a water pump will fix my car. That’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it. Put in the pump and let’s see what happens”

Where did that come from? Three hundred dollars is a lot of money for me. I’d already used up way more of my retirement money than I’d planned on this car purchase, and now I was spending more of it. That meant putting off other things I needed, or wanted. In the old days, that would have killed me. Back then, my anti-anxiety strategy would have kicked in – pull out my cigarettes and start smoking, and in the back of my mind, I would be planning the vodka solution for as soon as I got home.

Not any more. Now, when I find myself being upset about something, I look around and ask out loud, “Where’s the blood?” If I don’t see any, I’ve learned to quit worrying. Almost all of my old big deals were about things I wanted and couldn’t have; things I had and might lose; feelings that might be hurt; or pride that might be threatened. None of those things matter. They’re not big deals. They just aren’t.

That’s not to say I don’t act on troubling issues. I do. However, I deal with them without all the terrible angst I used to feel, and without trying to chase away the angst with alcohol, nicotine, or brownies.

I’ve also reviewed my life with a new perspective. I discovered that things that seemed disappointing to me at the time usually, if not always, ended up being a good thing in the end. Early in my teaching career, when I was discouraged, I applied to work in a mental health center. After an interview, the center’s director told me he wasn’t going to hire me. He said he didn’t think I’d be happy as a counselor there. I didn’t like hearing that, but I realize now my failure to get that job was a Godsend. I went on to have a very satisfying career in the education arena. Knowing what I know about working in our mental health system, I would guess my career there wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying if I had gotten that job.
You might be one of those folks who likes feeling crummy and can’t stand such Pollyannaish thinking. If that’s the case, you haven’t hit your real bottom yet. Those of us who’ve already experienced hell don’t need the emotional rush that can come from focusing on the negative. We want to feel good. We used to embrace drama. Now we avoid it.

I’m not talking about denying reality here. In fact, I’m talking the opposite. The reality is that when I don’t win the big bucks in the lottery, that’s a good thing. Look at the history of lottery winners. You’ll find story after story of ruined lives. Recently I met with my insurance agent who I've worked with for nearly thirty years. He's a good guy. He was wanting me to buy whole life insurance as a way of building a legacy of wealth for my children. He told me of the millions of dollars of insurance he had, with premiums of over a thousand dollars a month, so his children would have that money when he died. I think he said the premiums were that much. By the time he said that, I had pretty much tuned him out. Not because I didn’t appreciate his efforts. I didn't buy the insurance because I don’t want to give my children a legacy of wealth when I die. I can’t imagine doing anything worse than that to my children.

Early in my life, I had several relationships with women. Sometimes I was madly in love with them, but they weren’t in love with me. Back then, that was depressing. However, with the gift of the passage of time and a new perspective, I can now see how each of us turned out and developed and in each case can recognize that it was a very good thing that the relationships ended. I’m not saying anything negative about anybody. I’m still friends with many of them and hold strong feelings of affection for them. We just wouldn’t have been compatible for the long haul.

With those experiences from the past clearly in mind, I can now apply that lesson to what happens to me. When I don’t like the way something turns out, I stop, take a moment, and realize it’s probably for the best. Because I’m looking for that and not focusing on my disappointment, I can begin to see the positive side without having to wait a decade to two.
I don’t mean to imply that I never feel angst and disappointment. I do. Sometimes I still feel torn up inside by some event that doesn’t fit my new “big deal” definition despite all the life lessons and tools I have at my disposal. I am, after all, a human being. Recently a newspaper article contained disparaging comments by one of our school's parents about an event at the school where I work. The parent was complaining about how we school officials handled the event. He didn’t know it, but I was largely responsible for making recommendations for the decisions we made. Clearly, he didn’t have a clue as to all the ramifications we had to consider. I based my recommendations on 25 years of experience with similar events and the board member had zero years of experience. My stomach knotted up as I read the article and I couldn’t relax about it. I looked around for the blood on the floor and there was none, but I was still not happy. I told myself that in a year I wouldn’t even remember this little deal, but still stayed torn up.

What to do?

There were many strategies left to try, but in this case, my vigorous exercise returned my proper perspective. I set out on a run with all of that on my mind. Should I respond with a letter to the editor, or just call the guy? I had to do something. As I ran, and as the distance increased, my thoughts about what the board of education member said decreased, along with my angst. Then, I came to the Lumpkin Street hill. It’s steep and long. As I moved up it, breathing and moving became harder. Eventually I rediscovered this truth: When I am desperately gasping for air just to stay alive, and when it takes every bit of effort I can muster to move my legs one more step up that hill, stuff like what that parents thinks and says is absolutely meaningless. I regain my whole new perspective on life’s events.

And that attitude sticks after the run. The run reminded of what’s worth worrying about – staying alive. Everything else is just stuff that happens. So what? In other words, what a parent thinks about how events are run is just not a big deal.

That leads to another lesson. When people are mean to me, it’s never personal. Laura Huxley wrote a book called You Are Not the Target. She’s right. That parent wasn’t attacking me. He wouldn’t have been attacking me even if he had known I was the one making the recommendations for the decisions he was complaining about. Something unpleasant in his world happened because of our decisions. It had all to do with him and nothing to do with me. That’s usually the case. My reaction to him wasn’t personal either. When I become angry with someone, that anger almost always has roots in my pride. I feel attacked. I feel hurt. I’m not getting something I want. I want to be right. If I keep feeling that way, I’ll drink alcohol again. I'll smoke a cigarette again. I'll eat brownies again. I'll want to change that feeling. I'd rather do it my new way.

I’ve heard many alcoholics say, “I’d rather be happy than win.” When I remember it’s not personal, I am moving toward getting over my bad feelings. When I remember my anger is all about my pride, I am moving toward getting over my bad feelings. I’d rather be happy.

Robert, the mechanic, put a water pump into my car. I paid the three hundred dollars. Twenty minutes later, I discovered that the engine was still overheating. The next step was to replace the radiator – a six hundred dollar job. I haven’t done that yet. The car is sitting at my mother-in-law’s house and hasn’t moved in a year.

There’s still no blood.

No big deal.