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Mondays are long days for me. I start at about 9:00 am and then see patients all day. Today I wrapped up at 8:00 pm.

One of the things I've noticed as I listen to people talk about their lives is that most people are scared their actions will make someone else (their boss, their partner, their kids, etc.) upset. Or, to put it another way, most people believe that their actions are as important to other people as those actions are to them.

How easy it is to forget that other people are busy directing themselves as they start in their own performance (i.e., people are too busy obsessing over the things they do in their own lives) to care about what other people are up to.

I can remember this one time an intern came up to me and told me they had messed something up real bad.

I looked at the intern and asked, "Are there going to be any orphans on fire?"

The intern said no.

I asked, "Are either you or I going to be on the news because of what you did?"

The intern said no.

I asked, "Could someone go to jail because of what you did?"

The intern thought about it and then said they did not think so.

I asked, "So what did you do?"

The intern said they filled out a form wrong.

I told the intern that was annoying but that it was light years away from being really bad. (I've filled out forms wrong so many times!)  

Don't get me wrong; sometimes, people will take notice if we really screw something up. But usually, we have to screw something up in a way that messes with someone else's ability to star in their own ongoing drama.  

Everyone is very busy being their own biggest fan and their own most attentive critic.