It's Just a Feeling

I remember early in my relationship with Josh, we had an awkward phone conversation. We were talking on a Monday night, following a really fun and connecting weekend. For one thing, his call caught me in mid-workout, so I was struggling to hide my huffing and puffing as we talked. On top of that, our conversation was peppered with awkward pauses. Even the ending was weird — he somehow hung up before I could say goodbye.

Later we both confessed that we had gotten a weird vibe from the conversation. Each of us had hung up the phone with a bad feeling....

While it would be unwise to ignore gut feelings that may indicate a problem with the person's character or your compatibility, putting confidence in feelings without digging deeper to see what they are actually indicating (if anything) is equally foolish.

After talking about the ill-fated call, Josh and I realized that our "bad feeling" was indicating that I probably shouldn't answer the phone in the middle of Pilates, and very possibly right after work isn't the best time for us to connect.

"It's just a feeling," I concluded. And that was exactly what it was.

This is a portion of my article "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff" on Boundless today. I'd like to thank Josh for being willing to put our relationship out there, my college roommate Gretta (who even let me use her real name!) for providing a great illustration and my little sister Bekah for her wise-beyond-her-years advice.