Well I’m not sure where the ending of my last post went, but I do know it had something to do with a pint of milk and a worry ambush. So we’ll go with that.

So there I am going about my day, making myself a cup of coffee. I go to the fridge to extract the coffee and out of nowhere I’m ambushed by a worry. This particular worry has been living in the fridge for a while and is ‘touched’ every time I open the fridge door.

I call it a worry – but is there really such a thing as a worry? Actually waiting for me in the fridge was the lack of a pint of semi-skimmed milk.

Earlier in the week I had done a double shop – buying as much as possible for the following week’s holiday on top of my usual weekly shop.

As you may imagine I have a very detailed packing list (honed each year with any new specifics) and on this very detailed list is “one pint of semi-skimmed milk to go in the freezer, and one pint of semi-skimmed milk to remain chilled in the fridge to be used on arrival for cups of tea etc”.

I soon realised, however, that the ‘tea on arrival pint of milk’ had got mixed up with the milk for normal consumption and so I had in my mind that I needed to get a replacement pint of milk.

This was not a problem. This was not important. Even if I didn’t take one of the many opportunities afforded me in the following week to get a pint of milk (clearly there on my packing list and firmly gripped as a ‘to do’ in my terrier-like brain) there would be a chance to buy some milk on the journey, or if worse came to worse at our destination the morning after we arrived. Bad things were not going to happen as a result of the absent milk!

And yet! Every time I went to the fridge the milk shaped worry leapt out at me and settled in my tummy. 1 unimportant pint of milk, but multiple worrying worries!

A perfect example of a non-one-touch worry that needs to be better managed!

But how?

Firstly – acknowledge the first touch. Whether you like it or not, as soon as the thought occurs to you, as soon as the shadow crosses across your mind the clock has started, the potential for spawning has been set in motion.

AND secondly: Have a ruthless receptionist on duty in your brain at all times. Don’t give a pint of milk-shaped worry an ‘access all areas’ pass into your heart and mind! Make sure you send them to the right department.

Because I am – well – ME (!) – most things will arrive in my brain, and unless otherwise directed, follow the signs to the worry department and join the restless queue they find there.

Of course your receptionist needs to be not only ruthless, but well-informed – so in my next post I will consider a wise filtering procedure to make sure that each potentially troublesome visitor not only gets to the right place, but causes minimum damage along the way.