I should just get on and eat my breakfast, I told myself.

The shopping delivery had an hour slot when they should deliver by, but fifty-five minutes had passed. I paced about a bit, now slightly annoyed but mostly stressed at the fact that they were probably going to arrive late.

What a spoilt brat I’d become.

There’s no more wandering up and down aisles looking amongst the things I don’t want to locate the thing that I do. I should be so relaxed at the idea that I could sit back and wait for some poor harassed driver to turn up outside my house. Parking is sometimes an issue if badly timed with the local school run. Equally harassed mums and dads throw their cars haphazardly outside my home, coercing the youngest child into leaving the car quietly whilst chanting times tables or running through spellings with the school-bound sibling.

I sit down at my table, glancing furtively at the window, so as not to miss my treasured groceries, feeling strangely agitated now for the poor parents as well as the delivery driver. I looked at my mobile, 9:28am, two more minutes before they were officially late with my delivery. I’d ring and accept the money-off voucher as the rules state, and so this should have soothed my soul.

Why was I so anxious?

I hate being late myself, and so sitting there at my table like a psychic, I projected my feelings out to the Universe like a radar. So convinced was I that the van driver was rushing to collate my order, I got up and opened the front door.

Who was actually approaching me, at 9.29am…the eleventh hour…was in deed the driver but his approach was not hurried, it was leisurely and loping, even with the multiple bags he was carrying in his capable hands. This man was not stressed and when he saw me, he smiled an enormous, sunny smile that crinkled his eyes and showed huge, white teeth, a total enigma. He took a slow breath and said in his equally leisurely, loping Jamaican lilt;

“’ello dere Madam, and how’re yer doin’ today?” He tilted his head, genuinely waiting for a reply.

Still convinced that I needed to aid this fellow in his tardiness, I grappled with too many shopping bags than I could comfortably manage.

“’tek yer time, Madam, ders no point in ‘urtin’ yerself now is der?”

I looked at him smiling down at me as I struggled with two bags and an armful of squash bottles and I thought that this guy definitely had the right idea, why was I so stressed for him when he patently felt that he had all day.

“Well I don’t want to hold you up for your next delivery,” I puffed.

“Now dat is not yer problem, Madam, and yer know….they won’t get dere shoppin’ late, don’t worry”

And from somewhere in my mind a voice added, “Be happy”.

I texted my husband when the driver had sauntered back to his van, I told him about the encounter and how unnecessarily stressed I’d felt.

Without prompting, he sent me a YouTube link to the original clip of Bobby McFerrin singing, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ (if you want to smile today, please, please look that up!)

I’m going to have that playing at my funeral I’ve decided, ‘not worrying’ is obviously out of my grasp in this life but you never know, I might get the hang of it…

Please forgive my representation of the wonderful Jamaican accent, I have no intention of insulting any Jamaicans reading this, I just really, really wanted others to have a picture of this wonderful, happy man that I learned a great lesson from in such a short encounter.