Butterfly Effect

Have you ever made the tiniest mistake and it completely caused chaos in your entire life? I'm not talking about taking the wrong job, or marrying the wrong person, or trying to out run a train or something. Normally, those mistakes are pretty recognizable and their effects should come as no surprise. I've made enough of those kinds of mistakes and when everything blows up in my face, I'm really not shocked and don't get all that upset.

What I AM shocked and upset about is this STUPID credit card thing. Yes, I'm totally beating this dead horse. I'm amazed that one stupid little, tiny, minuscule mistake (losing it in the back of my closet) has caused time-sucking, completely irritating after effects that I'm having trouble dealing with.

It took more than a week to get my new card, which meant paying for stuff directly out of my bank account and causing un-needed stress watching those numbers shrink. Then when I got the card and activated it...it didn't work. So I was on the phone with the cc company last night for a half hour while they were having system problems. I had something MUCH more important that I was trying to get done by a certain time, so I'm sure my blood pressure was sky-high. Meanwhile, there was that embarrassing moment at Old Navy you know, and Claudio, the limo driver from my birthday, keeps calling me wanting my new card number. I'm getting notices from companies that directly bill my card, threatening monumental fees if I don't update my account quickly. Same thing with the gym, so I'll have to fill out more paperwork when I go there today. Sounds like not that big of a deal right? But I totally CANNOT deal with all of this!

I was sitting on hold last night thinking; wow, this one little mistake has sucked up hours of my time and caused a significant amount of stress. Just like when I went to the wrong eye doctor. Why am I so unable to deal with the smallest of issues, yet I'm completely calm and cool as I make life-altering decisions (like I'm in the process of doing now) and can handle huge situations, mistakes and tragedies just fine? Then I realized I'm having my own little butterfly effect; misplacing my credit card in my closet, has caused a tornado in my life.