When I think about my upcoming week and how my evenings will also be all about working with my 3rd grader on her 2nd monthly assessments I get discouraged and feel I want to skip right to Thursday, my easiest evening.

Then I remember question #6 from 12 (Stoic) Questions That Will Change Your Life by Ryan Holiday which says:

“What am I missing by choosing to worry or be afraid?”

The answer is, I am missing the fact that she still depends on me for her school work and that it’s going to be sooner than I expect when she would tell me, “I got it, mum, thank you”. I am missing the chance to feel how amazing that I am managing my job and Amman’s crazy traffic to be home on time for her and get our heads together to focus on the task at hand.

I also think about question 10:

“Does this actually matter?”

And my answer is that in the big picture, this doesn’t matter. Yes, I have 1 or 2 weeks of full evenings every few weeks; but as long we are recovering after, we are going to be just fine. I’ll take it one evening at a time.

I am also reminding myself that we had more fun than usual this weekend and we chose to study less than our normal dose. Having fun matters, and it made the weekend feel nicely longer.

Parents with older kids, I can guess what you’re thinking: “Wait till grade X then start talking”. Well, this is where I am right now and this is how I am coping.

I hope these questions will help you feel better too. Let’s take this one day at a time, which happens to be the title of a cool comedy on Netflix.

Note: this post appeared first in my weekly newsletter The Sunday Spark, sign up here.