Will this matter in 5 years?

Rain, tons of rain, decided to pour down on Sioux Falls today. I left for work way early, so I'm still not completely sure why I chose to take the interstate to work when I still would have been early enough if I had gone the long way. I'm convinced I had some logic to chosing the way I did - I just can't remember what it was.

Picture yourself driving on the on-ramp to the freeway. There's that section just before you merge that forms a V shape & all the rocks accumulate there because no one drives over it, right? I'm hoping you know what I'm talking about. So the car in front of me merges a little early and kicks up some rocks. It was raining fairly hard at this time, so I was used to the noise it was making on my car, but all the sudden I hear a loud pop. I'm looking around the see what it was when I notice this nice small, rock-sized shape dent in my windshield. Great.

As I'm driving I'm thinking of how completely annoying this is and I find myself getting a little frustrated. So I decide to give myself about 30 seconds to be mad about it & acknowledge how much it sucks but then I make sure to ask myself, "Is this going to matter in 5 years? Will I even remember it?" Usually, the answer is no so I just have to take a deep breath and move on.

Now that I've convinced myself that it's just one of life's happenings. I mean, I'm sure the guy in front of me would feel bad if he knew what happened. In fact, if you had given him the choice before he go in his car of putting a crack in someone's windshield or not, I'm pretty sure he would choose not. At least, that's what I'm going with. As soon as I finish this whole thinking process, I hit traffic. Again I'm asking myself - what logic was I using? After about 5 minutes I see a police car up ahead pulled over. Now I'm annoyed because for one, it really gets under my skin when people slow down because of an accident - which we can discuss another day - and for two, the police car is just pulled over. No lights, no other cars, not even a police man. About a quarter mile more of stop-and-go traffic, I see an accident.

It really put everything in perspective. Would you rather have a small, very easy & cheap to repair problem... Or does a few thousand dollar (plus the priceless gift of life) problem sound more appealing? This is my point: We spend so much time whining about the small things we go through that, most of the time, we won't even remember a week from now. So when something like this happens - remember to ask yourself, "Will this matter in 5 years?" If the answer is no, let it go.