The baby was born with a minor problem that caused enough concern for the doctor to order a test the next morning. The situation was causing everyone concern as they talked endlessly about what the problem could be and expressed their worse fears about what might be wrong with the tiny little girl. When one of the senior nurses on duty came into the room they began asking her a lot of questions to see if she could provide us with any further information on the possibilities.
  
   It was then that this very wise nurse turned to the parents and gave them the most important advice they may ever receive.  “We won’t know anything until the doctor does the test in the morning. At that time, if there is anything wrong, you will deal with it in the best way you can. Until then, there is no use in spending time worrying because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it right now. After the test you will deal with it and if you have to make any decisions that will be the time to give it your attention. Right now, just look at your daughter. It’s the first day of the rest of her life, and it is the first day of the rest of your life. Enjoy it for all it is worth.”
  
   As it turned out, the test results showed that there was absolutely nothing to worry about and that everything was perfectly fine with the baby. But the advice given to those young parents by the nurse the evening before was absolutely precious and is a philosophy of life that everyone should adopt.
  
   We all spend so much of our life worrying about things we cannot control.  This results in undue stress and concern which in turn prevents us from enjoying what is actually going on in our life at the moment.
  
   How many of you can remember worrying about something terrible happening only to be relieved later when it turned out to be far less dreadful in the end? Whether it is putting off an embarrassing medical test because you are afraid to find out that you might have some terrible disease; dreading an exam because you are afraid of failing; putting off bringing your car in for repairs because you think it might be something major; avoiding a meeting with a supervisory officer or manager; regardless of what it is that causes us worry, we often discover that we really had nothing to worry about in the first place. And when it turns out that there is a problem we simply “deal with it at the time” and our life goes on pretty much uninterrupted. In many cases, once we deal with the problem our life is actually much better than it was before.
  
   Adopting this philosophy of life doesn’t mean that you don’t do what you can to prepare for the future. For example, because of the amount of snow we have on the ground, there is likely to be flooding in the area. So you should at least make sure that your sump pump is working properly in order to be ready if there is flooding. But once you do that bit of preparation, there is not much you can do until flooding occurs and then you “deal with it”. I could provide hundreds of similar examples of how we can do our best to prepare for the future and then we just have to sit back and let nature takes its course.
 
   Imagine what a wonderful world this would be if we all just do what we can to prepare for the future and then take time to enjoy the present.