CREED HINSHAW: Life balances out as you seek joy in daily life

It was one of those parking lot moments. As I approached the front entrance to Panera, already savoring that hot cup of coffee and wild blueberry scone, I spied a group of four young adult women heading to the same doors.

With greater speed than it is taking me to write this paragraph I reckoned my approximate distance to the front door, estimated their relative distance to the same goal, calculated how fast each of us was walking and determined that all of us would arrive at the entrance at the same time.

I then sifted three possible options: (1) speed up my own pace so as to arrive at the entrance fast enough (without making it look like a race) to enter the restaurant unencumbered by niceties, (2) slow my pace to a crawl so that the other group would enter the front door without awkwardness or (3) maintain my current pace, therefore arriving at the entrance at the same time as they, allowing things to take whatever natural course might present itself.

I decided upon a variation of option No. 3, quickening my pace ever so slightly, arriving at the front door a few steps ahead of the women and opening the door for them. It seemed like the courteous thing to do.

I must admit, however, that while holding the door I was inwardly grumbling that this ordinary courtesy would seriously defer my coffee plans. These women looked like customers who would order complicated coffee drinks and dally over the menu before purchasing highly complex sandwiches involving an agonizingly long wait for long-suffering customers (namely, me). I fought back a martyred expression and assuring myself that waiting 15 minutes for coffee wouldn’t ruin my life.

Having reconciled myself to this terrible fate I was shocked to see these young adults enter the caf