A Self-Made Dilemma

I wonder sometimes if I am unintentionally causing more stress for myself than I need in my life at this stage. For example: I occasionally receive by mail some great offers for magazine subscriptions – we’re talking dirt cheap for quality publications. Being someone who likes to read and stay informed, I have bought into some of these offers at no or little cost to myself. The good news is that I receive the magazines; the bad news is that the growing stack of unread magazines on my desk is a cause of stress. I mean, I genuinely want to read the magazines, and not like every single word, but at least peruse each page, but I don’t tend to have the time to get through the weekly or bi-weekly edition before the next one shows up in my mailbox.

And this is not the first time I have caused this stressful overflow by oversubscription. The difference, I am learning, is that I used to have a commute by train and used to travel more, which gave me ample time to keep my magazine pile manageable. But with a travel schedule these days that is much less frequent than in the past, I am finding this first-world dilemma to be an unnecessary cause of stress. As I think about it now, the fact that such a benign matter would even be a cause of stress perhaps says more about the rest of my life than just a stack of magazines would suggest . . . .