Sometimes it seems like stress is one of those never ending problems. You stress and stress and stress some more, and just when it seems like it can’t get any worse, more stress comes pushing right along. You have bills, relationships, work, family, and so much more that you have to deal with on a regular basis. And all of the problems that occur with these aspects of your life seem to happen at once, which only serves to add more stress onto you. It would be great if everything could go smoothly in all these areas, but it wouldn’t be life without a little bit of turmoil. Right?

When I was waiting to hear back from my graduate school program I was really stressed out. I spent months crafting the perfect essays, and after I felt that they were up to par, I sent in my application. Then after the application was sent in, I had to wait to hear back if I had made it to the interview portion of the process. Once I found that I had gotten it, I scheduled my interview and began to prepare for it. When the morning of the interview came, I answered all of the questions to the best of my ability. The next step was for me to sit back and wait to see if I got accepted. This was the longest two weeks of my life. I thought that I did well on my application and in my interview, but there was no way of knowing what the admissions committee thought about me. I lost sleep wondering what was going to happen. I couldn’t concentrate at work because my thoughts kept drifting back to whether or not I would get into the program. In the end, I did end up making it in, but when I look back on those two weeks, I wish that I wouldn’t have spent so much time stressing over the outcome. There was absolutely nothing more that I could have done to persuade them to accept me. I submitted an application and I interviewed for it. The rest was up to them. The stress that I brought into my life during that waiting period was completely unnecessary because it didn’t do anything to help me. Stressing out didn’t allow me to get into the program. It only made my life more difficult.

Positive thinker, you can’t always control everything in your life. That’s why you have to choose to let go of those things that you can’t control. There’s no point in stressing about things that you don’t have any power over. That will only bring more stress into your life, and you definitely don’t need anymore of that. Instead, why not try focusing on the things that you do have the power to change…

You may not be able to make your sick grandfather get better, but you can work on repairing your relationship with him so that you can be in peace when he eventually passes away.

You may not have the power to convince someone to like you, but you can just keep being yourself so that you can find someone that will accept you for you.

You may not be able to change the way you look physically, but you can make sure that you work on your inner beauty so that you can spread some kindness onto the people that you meet.

If you spend all of your time and energy focusing on the things that you don’t have power over then you won’t have any time or energy leftover to spend on the things that you do have control over. I’m sure you’ve witnessed other people in your life doing this, and when you see them wasting their energy, you tell them that they need to move on and spend it more wisely. Do the same thing for yourself. Imagine that you’re your friend and if your advice to that friend would be for them to stop stressing out then you should take that advice and apply it to your own life.

Make a promise to yourself to keep the excess stress away from your life. You wouldn’t want to see someone you love carrying that extra baggage, so you shouldn’t want to see yourself with it either.