I'm sure most people have heard of the serenity prayer? 
It's a good reminder of how smaller can be good for us. I know it doesn't say smaller anything but I think it kind of works that way.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about all the things that have been making me crazy. I found some light with this prayer recently (even tho I'm a heathen this is a good one!)
I have a client who will NOT get with the program. They don't follow the rules. I spend time arguing with them and fixing their errors because they want to do everything themselves. I've told them repeatedly that I'm here so that they don't have to focus on the accounting and they can focus on growing their business, which they desperately need to do. It has all fallen on deaf ears.
They take up enough time with me and my team to be in competition with my franchises who have 275 properties. They have 45 properties. We bill by property. We don't get paid very much for the hours and hours of work my team and I put in on them.
This old prayer popped into my head when I was blowing gaskets again and I realized that I could not change them. They were going to do what they wanted and nothing I could say was going to change that outcome. So I surrendered. I decided that if they want to do their own accounting so very badly, then maybe it's time to broach the subject of training them. I spoke to their business coach, a coworker of mine who I would hand them off to for part of their training, and finally to my boss.
All I wanted was to help them learn to bill for themselves so I wouldn't have so much time spent fixing things and catching duplicates - they bill and then send them to us to bill also. And they add markups to the markups we've already billed. Sigh.
After discussing with my boss we decided that they were a financial loss for our dept. We are too overloaded to fight to keep them and they are costing us more trying to manage their shenanigans than we get paid each month. They are using too many resources time for the small monthly fee they pay. So we're going to train them to do it for themselves.
By the end of this year I should have one less monstrous headache to deal with and they get what they want. All this is because I changed my thinking. I accepted what I had power over. I looked at what my job is, which is to help them to the best of my ability, and realized that the best way I could help them was to help them do what they were determined to do even without my help. I'm letting them go. And I changed how I'm helping them - instead of fighting against them I'm surrendering and helping them go their own way. It's better for everyone all around.
So how is this being smaller? It got me thinking about how I've been so incredibly stressed about politics and the news and Facebook and all that jazz...I realized that I've been fighting against something that is beyond my power to change.
Politics? The only thing I can really do is vote, so I will. I'm also going to once again acknowledge that my opinions don't matter to others about politics. I'm going to pound that shit into my head! I won't become a liberal because of anything anyone tells me. That was a personal evolution based on my personal beliefs about how the world works and what is sustainable and what isn't. I voted liberal the last time when I voted for Bill Clinton.
Why would I think that anything I had to say mattered to liberals? I need to stop fighting that. Even trying to fight the misinformation is pointless because people won't hear anything they don't want to believe. I need to remember that I'm small. I have the power of a vote and I will use it but in the bigger scheme of things, I'm small. There is comfort in that.
I don't have to be or do anything about politics except vote and then deal with outcomes as they affect me personally. It's really out of my hands. Stressing so hard over it all is just a waste of life and energy. And you can do more than just vote, you can run or promote something or support something but ultimately you need to remember that you are one tiny piece of a very vast machine in this country and there is a limit to your influence.
So in some ways I'm becoming smaller, in a good way. I'm going to work on accepting my limitations and then thrive in the freedom that grants me. Freedom from some of the rage and fear and pain that I've been feeling. I can't make anyone else be kinder or more understanding to anyone else. I can be nicer to others myself. So that is what I'll do.
I'm shifting my scope of influence and it feels better. Scary because wouldn't it be nice if we really did have power to stop people from being terrible? From hurting each other? Maybe we just need to focus on the smaller stuff, in our own sphere of influence. Take care of your loved ones. Be kinder. Be small. Be in your own world and do what you can with what life hands you.
Things like who win elections or if that lump in your breast is cancer or not are not in my power to affect, except in tiny ways. Like a vote. And sometimes there is NOTHING you can do except do your best with what life hands you.
I think that's what I'm going to work on doing. I'll pay attention to the big picture but my life is much smaller than that and I need to not forget that. I don't have to worry so hard about all of it...let it go. Understand the difference between what you can change and the things that you cannot change.
Small can be good!
