Sherlock

By Will Gage
Regional Loss Prevention Manager
Follett Higher Education Group

The other night, I stopped at a friend’s house on the way home from a long day. He also works LP and was just getting home and it was late – almost midnight – but as we all know, that’s nothing out of the ordinary for retail LP around the holidays. Anyway, we had a quick bite to eat and sat around and caught up since it had been a while since we had seen one another. He has three young kids who were all asleep and of course are all ramped up for Christmas and Santa coming to town. His wife came out to sit and chat with us after our long day. She also brought some toilet paper with her and proceeded to throw it high up to the ceiling fan about 20 feet above the floor. I sat there with somewhat of a puzzled look on my face and then they told me their story of the “Elf on the Shelf”. I had heard of this guy before as I’m sure many people have, but had not experienced it first hand, not like this. Apparently, Sherlock (their kids name for the Elf) comes to the house nightly during the weeks leading up to Christmas and visits to ensure the kids are “being good” for Santa. Sherlock watches over things, sometimes eats leftover cookies, and apparently also “tee-pees” the fans. Well the kids are so into this that they leave gifts for Sherlock – artwork they have made for him, treasured keepsakes, updated Christmas lists, and they write notes with things they want to tell him and/or Santa. Not having kids myself, I read some of their letters and just sat there, laughed, and soaked it all in. But what a great thing. And what a wonderful tradition to build for the kids – certainly something for building family memories. In reading some of the notes the kids wrote, it just made me remember – how truly simple things are when you’re a kid. And regardless of how simple it might sound to you and me, this consumes these kids and it means the world to them. So much so that they can’t even sleep until having everything “in order” for Sherlock and Santa. But it got me thinking – that at the end of the day, and when it’s all said and done – it’s really not all that different from us. Sherlock might have a different name – like jobs, bills, kids, responsibilities, etc. But I think the key to coping with it and not letting it keep US up at night is to not lose sight of the fact that it really is still very simple – if we keep it that way. We just have to figure out how to keep things “in order" to control how much we let daily stress consume us and how complicated we ultimately let it become.

Nobody said life is easy. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I find myself stressing out over things that happen throughout my day. Generally it’s work related but even family issues catch up with us, especially around the holidays. And I often find myself anticipating what tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week will bring my way. Scheduling interviews, doing audits, partnering with stores, addressing physical security issues – the list is endless and we’re all there. And clearly we all have different “Sherlock’s” in our lives. But it’s important to remember that we have to take some time to “de-complicate” – maybe that’s on our car ride home with some music, maybe it’s thinking about some much-needed time off to come after the holidays, and maybe it’s after we get home after a long day and throw some toilet paper. Whatever it is – even if only for 15 minutes a day – we have to make the time to do it to maintain our sanity and clear our heads. I know what some people are thinking – that it’s much easier said than done. But just try it – try taking just those 15 minutes a day that is your time – nothing that you let stress you out, nothing that you let complicate anything – that’s your 15 minutes. And when you’re done, your next 15 minutes will likely arrive sooner and sooner each time because doing it actually makes the daily grind fly by much faster. It worked for me because I had a splitting headache from my long day, but after my unexpected de-complication courtesy of Sherlock, I drove home without my headache after I took just a little time for myself to simplify everything.

As the years go by, it’s funny what simple unexpected things (and so very different year after year) happen to us that can make us have certain “epiphanies” – trust me – this “Sherlock” moment I had was completely unexpected. I lost someone very close to me this holiday season – someone very close and she was taken way too soon. And I struggle to figure out how it all fits into the “master plan” because right now it just doesn’t make sense and it certainly doesn’t seem fair. But I think we’ve all learned in one hard way or another that the world around us doesn’t stop for our problems, no matter how big. It keeps moving forward and so should we. So must we. But the less we let those problems consume us and the more we can remember to take a little time to de-complicate things and clear our heads, the more we will smile, laugh, and certainly win that internal battle that we’re all faced with. All too often we lose sight of that and forget to find a few minutes for ourselves and before we know it, the day/week/month/year is over and it’s too late. But who knows, maybe if you can be sure to take just a little bit of time this coming New Year to simplify things a bit, de-complicate, and bring Sherlock into your day – even for just 15 minutes – it will help take away some of whatever stress is contributing to your headaches. I hope so, because it certainly did exactly that for me...

*Submitted on December 27, 2013