Sweating the small stuff... creatively

No-one's life is perfect; it is full of aggravation as well as beauty. The ability to live with a certain amount of stress and irritation is important to being a healthy person.

So here's a way to live with these little aggravations: use them as a playground for your creativity! There's probably lots of small stuff that you could solve without too much effort; you've just been overlooking it in favor of the big stuff. 

Grossed out by how bad the food is in the school or office cafeteria?  Driven crazy by someone's irritating laugh? Bored by your commute, or by one of your work tasks? What could you do to make that one thing better?  I don't mean to say you can make it go away completely (especially the irritating laugh). But what mental or physical tricks and tools do you have that can make these irritations less intrusive in your life?

First, name the problem.  Next, decide that you want your life to be just a little smoother, and commit to finding a solution.  Third, come up with ideas about how you could solve it (if you ask a friend or family member, they may be able to help).  Found a solution? Give it a try.  Did your it help? If not, well, tomorrow is another day.

Lastly, remember that humor and hope are close cousins.  If you can smile or laugh about even annoying things, you have a much better chance of moving forward.