Stop sweating how to make things happen

BY MARY-ELIZABETH HARMON
Founding Mother, Chard & Stripes

When I was a kid, my mother would drive me nuts with her advice:

“Cross that bridge if and when you come to it,” she’d say when I thought too far ahead.

Though it seemed like she said it A MILLION TIMES, it didn’t sink in until I’d grown up and worn myself out doing things that didn’t bear fruit or need my attention at the time. Or at all, in many cases.

How much more are ye better than the fowls?
And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?

JESUS
Luke 12:24-26

Getting worn out wasn’t fun but it had a silver lining:

It “helped” me to relax and learn to go with the flow. And things I’d struggled hard to make happen in the past started clicking into place with little work from me.

Now, I make lists of things for life to handle. No joke.

Like Jesus said, if we can’t “do that thing which is least, why take [up] thought for the rest?”

Let life handle how to make things happen. Your job is getting clear on WHAT you want to happen and following the breadcrumbs.

Before I learned to let life take the wheel, I wasted time, mind power and money working out how to produce clothes for sale, even though I should have known I was jumping the gun: I was unclear about what I wanted to make.

Fast forward to May 2021—by then, I’d settled on a shirt to sell through Chard & Stripes.

I go for a haircut.

I blab with the barber and mention fashion.

He perks up: He loves fashion and had designed a dress once.

What perfection: Life had led me to a barber who led me to a pattern maker.

Within 48 hours, she was writing me an estimate to make a sample shirt.

I have tons of stories like this.

Chill and stop struggling to figure things out.

The End.

P.S. This post doesn’t tell the whole story. Read this for a critical missing piece.