I didn’t have a good sleep last night. I was tossing and turning and woke up tired and slighted agitated.

I started to look on-line at flights to Vietnam for about two hours and got frustrated and confused because there were so many options, so many possibilities. I was paralyzed from making the one decision, the right decision, the one where I would have to put money down on it and take a chance.

At the same time I was searching for a flight, I was looking at reviews of places to visit in the region, airline reliability, top spots to see, hotel reputations, you name it. One blog from a frequent traveler on tips to booking on-line said it should only take 40 minutes to book a flight, otherwise you are looking too much, working too hard, and that made me even more stressed as I was taking too long!

Yes I was one big stress ball, picking up a lot of anxious lint on my cyber journey!

I couldn’t take it anymore and had this urgent and pressing desire, coming from frustration and impatience for the most part, to book something, anything. So I did.

When the email confirmation came in, it ended up being a different timing than I had booked and more money. I was really pissed now. What to do?

There is a blessing, silver lining to this story, because soon afterwards, there was an email from the agency who had the flight deal, letting me know that I had 48 hours to pay for the trip. I thought I hadn’t paid but I was so rattled by the time I got the confirmation email I didn’t check.

I was relieved and knew what I needed to do.

Let go.

When episodes like this occur, at first I work harder and longer, do better, and put my nose to the grindstone to get ‘er done.

During quieter moments, I can hear a soft and caring voice that says, “take a step back for while, go do something different, breathe, let go?”

What?

I argue, “but I need to finish this by x or I need to get this done because (fill in good reason).” I plow on, getting more tired and whiny like a kid that is up too late and had too much candy, in my case it is caffeine.

The flight search is a good example. I had my grip so tightly clutched around an expected result I didn’t want to let go, in fact letting go was not an option.

In our society where we are quick to solve and fix as signs of progress, what if we left some things open ended like chords hanging unplugged.

What if we were to come back after a rest and decide which chord to plug in.

Or we may decide not to plug in at all.

That’s how I came to Bangkok, but that is a story for another time.