One of my pet peeves (I, who spend entirely too much time driving the California freeways) is drivers who don’t use their turn signals. Come on, when traveling down the freeway, the last thing you need is some driver cutting in front of you without even the hint of a warning. Namely, said turn signal.

Turn signals were invented for a reason: safety! It’s just dangerous not to let fellow occupants of the road know what you’re about to do. Plus, to my mind, it’s disrespectful and discourteous. So there.

But the other day, after spending a good 10 minutes ranting, albeit silently and alone in my car, about the latest no-turn-signal driver’s behavior, a saying flashed through my mind: “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” As in, that driver’s behavior, and others like theirs, isn’t mine to fix or correct, so not my “circus,” and they are definitely “not my monkeys.”

Huh. So I just wasted 10 precious minutes of my life on something that isn’t my business in the first place, and about which I can do absolutely nothing. Talk about a wake-up call! I started logging how much time I focus on circuses that aren’t mine, trying to corral monkeys that aren’t mine either. In a word, too much.

I put myself on a “circus and monkeys” diet. Now, when I catch myself obsessing about something like that, I switch my focus as quickly as possible to something pleasing to focus on, like the beauty of nature all around us. Or on something that is in my “circus and monkey” domain, like how to handle a problematic work situation.

Life is too valuable to waste on situations we can do nothing about. So give up other people’s circuses! They are not worth your time or your energy. Tend to your own monkeys, your life will be better for it.