I often get worked up by what actor Ben Affleck calls “the stupid little shit.”
In an interview with GQ, he shared a lesson he learned as he was processing the loss of his parents and thinking about his own mortality:
At the end of life, what isn’t remembered or valued or that just doesn’t matter is all the stupid little shit.
Whatever it is, the internecine thing, the work conflict, the petty dispute. The shit we get involved in with ourselves, the little resentments, the time you spent being offended, that shit is just a waste of time.
And so as much as you can sort of let it go, I just think that’s so clearly the way to try to live.
We all have instances of this: when a driver dangerously cut into our lane, when a colleague took credit for our work, when a stranger left a nasty comment on our social media post. As it is happening, all we feel is our blood boiling.
We already know that, at the end of our lives, all these annoying moments won’t matter. We won’t even remember them. But in that moment, we just can’t think properly. We let our emotions lead us to the wrong place, and then we regret it.
Since hearing that interview, whenever I find myself in such a situation, I take a breath and ask myself this: Will this matter at the end of my life? If the other person is someone I love, I ask myself: Do I want to remember them as someone I cherish or as someone who makes me mad? Then, I try to let it go.
At the end of our lives, we will realize that holding onto all that anger and resentment, especially when the other party might not even care, is pointless and harmful. Because, as Ben Affleck said, that shit is just a waste of time.
Keep this letter in your book, and it will come back to you.