Taking care of the details

My Internet connection was down for a day. I didn't do anything about it at first -- Don't ask me why but I was sorta hopin' it would reboot all by itself.

Guess what?

It didn't.

Had to call my provider and they remotely rebooted it for me. Took all of five minutes and voila! Cyberland on my desktop once again.

What is it with taking care of the little things?

Now, there were two things going on here. One was, the fear of being on the telephone for hours wishing and hoping some robotic voice on another planet would respond whom I could understand and who could understand my problem enough to fix it. The second was, I dislike the idea of being so addicted to something I can't live without it.

I admit it. I'm a cyber-junkie. I check my emails throughout the day. Check into my 'favourites' off and on during the day. I will use email over the phone any day. And, I feel naked without an online connect feeding me a plethora of extraneous information throughout the day. I'm unclothed without my knowledge source.

As if everything I read online is the whole and complete truth.

What is true is not having Internet access changes my process. Which means, this morning I'm late.

As soon as I did get access back I had to do some housekeeping duties I've been putting off. On Sunday night, I went to pay my bills online (does anyone write cheques anymore?) and found my bank was doing maintenance and my bank account not accessible. I put it off. Yesterday morning I went to do it, and my access was not working. So..... this morning I did what I was supposed to have done -- x2.

Yup.

I inadvertently paid a couple of bills twice because I wasn't paying attention to what my computer was saying back. Like -- CONFIRM -- is this what you want to pay? Yes. The amount was right. But I didn't read the payee information.... and voila! I've now double paid a couple of bills and had to go in and pay the ones I'd thought I'd paid in the first place.

One good thing is -- I won't have to pay heating and electricity for two months! The not so good thing is, I've got less money than I intended!

See, paying attention to the little things is not my forte. And, because I don't pay attention, I make mistakes. In my mistakes I create good and bad -- and I add stress to my everyday living that doesn't need to be there.

My commitment is to take care of the little things that can add up to big stressors when I avoid them.

Avoidance strengthens fear.

I know I have an irrational fear of authority -- this is self-awareness I've had for quite some time. Paying bills = authority. In my fear and self-defeating games, I constantly undermine myself. I avoid dealing with authority -- it's sort of a convoluted thought process that says, if I avoid this, I'll feel better (for a short while) and everything will just take care of itself.

Sort of like my Internet access. I didn't phone in the hopes it would fix itself.

Misguided thinking on my part. A whole bunch of denial. And unnecessary anxiety.

My goal is to limit my anxiety by turning up for me in all areas of my life -- and that includes taking care of the small things.

The question is: What about you? Are you avoiding doing the things that need to be taken care of in the hopes they'll take care of themselves? Are you willing to get truthful about your behaviours that are undermining your peace of mind?