A friend of mine recently heard the phrase goat feathers. She decided to google it and found this definition: a term for distractions, sidelines and deflections that take one’s attention away from their main goals or priorities. It implies a tendency to get sidetracked by less important matters, hindering progress and productivity.

I’ve been gathering goat feathers for some time now. In fact, I seem to have feathers leaking out of every corner of my brain, and once I noticed that I began to wonder, why was this happening?

Upon reflection, I realized I seem to be worried a lot lately. I’ve worried about finding a decent priced plane ticket to go see our kids. I’ve worried about the strange smell that seems to descend on our den whenever we’ve been gone a few days. I’m worried about the environment, our national and state parks, the state of our nation, the horrendous wars around the world, and, in fact, worried about the world in general.

Apparently, I haven’t been getting as much done lately because I’ve been goat-feathering to distract myself from my worries.

As often happens when I’m concerned about something, my subconscious got to work and floated a helpful thought into my consciousness: I’m not in charge of the parade. I donate to the causes in which I believe. I vote for my beliefs, but I am not in charge of everybody else. I may disagree with someone, but bombastic words do not change minds; as our younger son says, “You do you and I’ll do me.” Yep. I can only live the life I need to live, a life that is productive and a life that will hopefully make some small, good changes.

That same day, as I was reading Matt Haig’s book The Life Impossible, some very helpful words caught my attention. From the chapter titled, “An Equation Without a Solution,” Haig’s character says:

“Wanting things to be simple can become a kind of prison, it really can, because you end up staying trapped inside how you want things to be rather than embracing how they could be. You end up closed. You end up shutting doors to so many possibilities.” (Haig, 2024, p.184)

If I want all the things I’ve been worried about to only occur the way I want them to occur, I’ve limited myself to other possibilities, to other ways of seeing and accomplishing things. I keep going back to the words “embracing (things) how they could be. …

Husband Dan has an incredibly smart first cousin, Sue Monroe Gordon, who was once interviewed on the podcast ‘Iron Butterflies.” When asked how she prepares for meetings about problems, Sue replied that she immerses herself in the other person’s side, getting to know it inside out, looking for commonly held beliefs from which she and the other person can build a bridge toward a solution. Excerpt on YouTube here. In other words, Sue looks to embrace the way things could be.

I am now sweeping goat feathers out of my brain. I will remember to look for other possibilities than what my worries project. Other worries will undoubtedly appear, but I truly am not in charge of the parade; I can only march in the parade, accomplishing what I can while looking for ways things could be. As motivational speaker and author Glenn Turner says, “Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”

I would add to that quote that worrying can cause goat feathers to collect in your brain, but there are ways to sweep them away.

Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.

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