It doesn’t matter if you just bought a fresh Bentley!

I always feel like I have to have an image when I post. This is of a 30″ figure of Batman that was given to me for Christmas of 2008. He resides in my cube at work– a silent guardian, a watchful protector (why haven’t I watched that movie again since it came out on dvd/blu-ray?!)

A co-worker brought to mind today this little bit of perspective I picked up this semester in an article I read. I’ve been meaning to share it. It’s by Milton Glaser from his AIGA talk given in November of 2001 called “Ten Things I Have Learned”.

Last year someone gave me a charming book by Roger Rosenblatt called ‘Ageing Gracefully’ I got it on my birthday. I did not appreciate the title at the time but it contains a series of rules for ageing gracefully. The first rule is the best. Rule number one is that ‘it doesn’t matter.’ ‘It doesn’t matter that what you think. Follow this rule and it will add decades to your life. It does not matter if you are late or early, if you are here or there, if you said it or didn’t say it, if you are clever or if you were stupid. If you were having a bad hair day or a no hair day or if your boss looks at you cockeyed or your boyfriend or girlfriend looks at you cockeyed, if you are cockeyed. If you don’t get that promotion or prize or house or if you do – it doesn’t matter.’ Wisdom at last.

What do you get from that? I get that we spend too much time worrying about what other people think. Maybe too much time worrying about what we think. Maybe we spend too much time and energy worrying, period. It’s not to say that there aren’t things that matter, because there are. But how much time / energy do we expend worrying about things we can’t change or that are insignificant?

And yeah… the title of this post is spoken by The Rock, heh. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the phrase “It doesn’t matter.” Good times 😉