How do you manage the challenge of doing work and keeping your head while also dealing with the trials of life? There’s the challenge of managing time, of course, but also: how do you concentrate? And how do you keep positive and productive in the midst? How when faced with frustration, disappointment, and worse does one wring out of the hours and days goodness?
We have been trying to recover from the latest weird storm to rip through our area and the heat wave that rolled in right afterward. Our house got off lucky as far as downed trees are concerned, but we ended up with a different sort of problem: dirty damage from a broken generator that put us out of the house. My point here is not to tell how bad we have it (ours may be a singular problem, but the degree of upset and stress is hardly unique) but to think about how to be ok in the midst of it all. How be productive with the creative work that I love and be a decent person to the people that I love while managing angst and frustration? 
We all face such challenges in moments enduring or brief that threaten to compromise our best engagement with life. Managing the external demands of house repair, say, or a spiteful ex, or chronic health problems, or a clueless boss is only part of it. The other and maybe even more difficult is internal: keeping your cool and getting on with whatever is right and good.
Did you know that the most highlighted passage in the erotic best-seller Fifty Shades of Gray is not a steamy sex scene but this?: “A man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled,” attributed to Andrew Carnegie. The second is this: “the growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership.”
However you manage, I’d love to know. Meanwhile, it’s another day of clean-up around here, and — here’s hoping — all sorts of good.
