Never doing the dishes, leaving the toilet seat up and discarding toe nail clippings in the living room. These are but a few of the terrible habits we women like to pick up on to demonise the men in our lives. Yes, getting home to a kitchen full of washing up may be irritating and finding toenails on the carpet is downright foul, but how often do we stop to identify our own bad habits? We may well be house proud with impeccable personal hygiene, but I’m willing to bet many of you are afflicted with a certain behavioural tendency that has plagued me for years. I’m talking about the instinctive and frankly exhausting practice of over analysis.
Currently employed as a waitress for a small coffee company, you would think my working day wouldn’t be awfully taxing. But for a self-confessed worry wart with the miraculous ability to over analyse any situation, even the simplest of tasks can become an enigma. Take this morning for example; one of our regulars, a 92 year old man who makes the bus journey into town every day to enjoy a cappuccino, provided a real dilemma. As well as his usual beverage, he wanted a portion of crumpets. As I waited for the grill to toast them, all I could think about was the butter. Do I place three miniature packets of butter and a knife on the plate as we normally do for our customers, or do I butter them for him, knowing that he is elderly and has an unsteady hand? Would he see this as a helpful gesture or as an insulting way of suggesting he is incapable of doing things for himself? After all, if he can make his way into town every day he is surely capable of unwrapping some butter portions and spreading them on his crumpets? Needless to say this train of thought, which sounds pathetic to me now, caused genuine stress and very nearly resulted in two charcoal flavoured crumpets. (In case you are interested, I decided to butter the crumpets in the end and he thoroughly enjoyed them, apparently unaware of the distress caused).
Crumpet conundrums aside, my point is this. If even the most trivial, inconsequential decisions and observations provoke such turmoil, it’s probably time to chill out a bit. Just because your boyfriend thinks Rita Ora looks stunning in her new video doesn’t mean he’s gone off you. If you catch a stranger staring at you in the street it doesn’t automatically signify that you have something stuck on your face. And if your friend doesn’t text you back straight away she’s probably not fallen out with you over the tenner you owe her.
It’s true that a touch of anxiety now and then can be healthy, but more often than not it’s just an unnecessary barrier to having a stress free day. With spring on the way, new beginnings are on my mind and over analysing is one bad habit I’m really hoping to break.