Ant Infestations, Uncle Carmine, and Stress Management

Last Fall, I had an ant problem. Most mornings in August and September, I would enter the kitchen to do my usual steps: start the coffee, feed the dog hounding (sorry) my every step, pull breakfast food out of the fridge. And there, to my consternation, before I could do my waking-up things, were 100 or more tiny ants, all over the floor, or the counter, or in the sink. Swarms of them. Lines of them. 

For the first 10 or so times this happened, the same mental cycle kicked in: “This is gross. You keep a filthy house. These little monsters are some kind of disease vector. This is a big urgent problem. Fix it. Now!” 

I would despair of any peace and ease in my morning, grab a rag and start wiping up ants. Feeling stress. Time pressure (I have things to do today!). Shame. 

The dog felt it, the drama and the vibe shift: “What’s up with you? When are we going for a walk?” 

It kept happening, over and over, day after day. No matter how compulsively I wiped down the counters at night. “I’m losing. The ants are winning. My mother would disapprove.” (Or not her, Mom’s cool, but some other unseen bastion of cleanliness who lives in my head was judging me.)

Then, one day, as I was wiping up ants and feeling stressed and bad about myself, I thought about my husband’s great-uncle Carmine. He’s an old hippie in his 80s who lives on the side of a mountain near Lake Tahoe in northern California. The last time my husband and his father went to visit Carmine, there were ants marching across his floors and kitchen counters. And they asked him, “Hey, Carmine, don’t you want to do something about these ants?” 

And Carmine shrugged. “Eh, they don’t eat much.” 

That was the end of that. Carmine doesn’t care about the ants. No stress. No urgent action required. Nothing to fix. The day proceeds as planned. (Or as unplanned. He’s been retired for decades. Carmine is winning on all levels.)

As I shook the rag full of ants out into the backyard, trying to be a no-kill kind of guy, I wondered how I could be more like Carmine the zen hippie mountain man. Can I deal with the ants without the stress and panic and shame and annoyance? 

It’s a question I try to remember to ask myself when I’m stressed about pretty much anything: Why am I feeling this negative emotion?  

And another question I love: What if I just do the thing? Can I let these emotions go and just do what I need to do? 

Can I just clean up the ants and not have feelings about it? Can I just get ready to do this presentation without feeling so self-conscious? 

With the ants, one thing I did was follow my own teaching. I got curious. I used my first Culture Builder: Be Humble and Curious. 

I got curious about the ants. Where they come from, how to dissuade them from coming indoors. 

I found out some helpful info: These ants do not carry any diseases. AND they are looking for water, not food. So it’s not (necessarily) that my kitchen is dirty. The ants come in anyway, because for some reason they need water this time of year.

So that’s my advice, that I’m trying to follow myself more consistently. When things get stressful, with disagreements or time pressure or the “should” of keeping a clean house or being perfect in meetings, we can catch that feeling and ask those two questions: 

• Why am I feeling this negative emotion? What’s the idea or thought that put me here?

• Can I let these negative emotions go and just do what I need to do without them along for the ride?