Snooze, Traffic and the Early Meeting

Applying the work of Dr David Burns in everyday life

There’s a particular kind of morning where you’re behind before your feet even hit the floor. Mine started with the alarm, followed by snooze, then snooze again, and then a few more for good measure. When I finally dragged myself upright and checked the time, I was nearly an hour late. Perfect. Before the day had properly begun, I was already negotiating with myself, replaying the moment the alarm first went off and wondering why I didn’t just get up and get on with it.

It was over before it started.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

The drive in didn’t help. On the one morning I needed a clean run, every car on the road seemed to be taking a scenic route at half the speed limit. I found myself questioning everything. Why would Taylor set a meeting this early? Surely meetings shouldn’t start before 9am just because one person prefers early starts. As traffic slowed, merged, and generally behaved in ways that felt personally inconvenient, I could feel the tension building. By the time I reached my turn-off, I was already on edge, and when the driver beside me refused to let me merge, it felt like the final confirmation that the day was conspiring against me.

Of course it was.

I arrived at the office frustrated, rushed, and carrying far more emotional weight than the situation warranted. The snooze button was to blame, Taylor’s calendar choices were questionable at best, and the general standard of driving on the road had, in my mind, deteriorated overnight. Not exactly the mindset you’d choose if you were trying to set yourself up for a productive day.

And yet, none of it was actually in my control.

While that sequence is stitched together, every element of it is familiar. Most of us have lived some version of that morning. The more useful question isn’t whether those things happened, but how many of them were ever within my control. The honest answer is none. Not the meeting time, not the traffic, not the behaviour of other drivers, and certainly not the fact that the alarm had already been snoozed multiple times. What sat underneath all of it wasn’t the events themselves, but the way I was thinking about them.

In Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, Dr David Burns outlines a range of cognitive distortions that shape how we experience the world, particularly in moments of stress or anxiety. One of the most common is what he calls “should statements”. These are the internal rules we impose on the world, often without realising it, about how people, situations, and even we ourselves are supposed to behave. Burns’ work shows that these thoughts aren’t harmless, indeed they distort our perception of reality and create a steady stream of unnecessary frustration.

Looking back at that morning, nearly every thought I had fell into this category. I should have gotten up earlier. Taylor shouldn’t schedule meetings before 9am. Other drivers should move faster or at least get out of the way.

Each one sounds reasonable, but each one creates a gap between what is and what you think should be. And that gap is where frustration lives.

The problem isn’t that these thoughts feel unreasonable. In many cases, they’re entirely justified. The problem is that they’re directed at things that have either already happened or were never ours to control in the first place. By the time I was sitting in traffic, no amount of internal commentary was going to rewind the morning or change the behaviour of the people around me. All it achieved was a steady escalation of tension that I then carried into the rest of my day.

Burns’ insight is that by identifying and challenging these distorted thoughts, we can significantly reduce unnecessary stress. I’d take that a step further. It’s not just the obvious “should” or “must” statements that create the problem, but any line of thinking that attempts to rewrite reality or control outcomes beyond our influence. Whether it’s replaying past decisions, wishing circumstances were different, or expecting others to behave according to our preferences, the effect is the same. We invest energy in places where it has no chance of producing a return. That’s the trap and it’s one most of us fall into daily without even noticing.

The alternative is acceptance, and it’s often misunderstood. Acceptance isn’t about lowering standards or becoming indifferent. It’s about recognising reality as it is and making a conscious decision about where your effort is best spent. It’s the difference between fighting a fixed point and adjusting your response to it.

I can’t change the fact that I hit snooze, but I can choose to get up when the alarm goes off tomorrow. I can’t dictate when someone else schedules a meeting, but I can plan my morning accordingly. I can’t control how other people drive, but I can control how I respond when they do something that inconveniences me.

That’s where control actually sits.

What becomes clear over time is that a significant portion of our mental load comes from resisting things that are already set or outside our influence. We carry that resistance into our work, our conversations, and our decision-making, often without realising it. It shapes our mood, our behaviour, and ultimately the outcomes we experience.

So the next time you feel that familiar build-up of frustration, pause for a moment and ask yourself a simple question.

Am I trying to control something that I can’t? If you are, you’re not solving the problem, you’re just carrying it.