The thing that bothers you most is often the least of your real problems, I've come to see.
Relax. You can safely stop obsessing, is the message I'm getting.
Raising minor irritations up into vengeful demi-gods determined to sack your happiness and drain you of joy is unrealistic.
I have a friend in town, she's a teacher. Her old boyfriend was so abusive to her that he ended up in prison for five years. Where he remains insane and possessive and stewing. He has already, from the inside, put out a contract on her life. Which some people pretended to take so they could shake down the family for protection money. This year her boyfriend's due out, nobody can stop it.
Now that's a problem worth obsessing over.
Or my close professional colleague whose son, she freely informs me, will kill himself eventually. Sooner rather than later, actually. She fully expects it; and she's not hyperbolic. He's mentally ill. He's hugely successful in his job but deeply depressed and occasionally psychotic. He will not take his medications and has been hospitalized this last year. Every day's the same for him: he goes to work; is productive for his company; comes home to his just-as-depressed wife and their two young girls; and goes into an immobile, stubborn state of misery that is unendurable. Sooner or later.
