It’s winter again, and you know what that means:  The germs are coming! Yep, once again it’s time for your family’s annual viral voyage on the Nightmare of the Seas — and for you to wave a fond adieu to any remaining semblance of control over your work schedule.

Sounds stressful? Don’t you worry your pretty little overextended head. Houston, we have a solution. Now is the perfect opportunity to deepen your practice of liberation from earthly things and embrace the fleeting, ephemeral nature of life. The root of suffering is attachment, and it’s time to release your attachment to having a job.

Instead of trying to hold on to what you have, you must release it to achieve peace of mind. Good news — you’ve done some of the work already. Thanks to parenting, you’ve released your attachment to a few things:  Sleep, friendships, the fantasy of affordable childcare. Achievements unlocked.

What are your professional goals this winter? Managing to get to work on time a couple of times a week? Making enough money to pay your bills? Not getting fired? Do not pin your happiness to such circumstances or things. Do not let the urge to be paid for your labor possess you. Open your mind to the possibility of living in a van down by the river.

Speaking of rivers, do you know the famous parable of the raft? No? Okay, I’ll skip to the point: to eliminate suffering you must, you guessed it, get rid of the raft. You’re still floating on the river and a raft sure would come in handy? Too bad. No raft for you. Make like Idina and let it go into the unknown.

Over the next few weeks, at first you may hold on too tightly to worldly entanglements (ahem, screening calls from the school nurse?), but, if you follow these easy steps, you too can learn to accept without fear or judgment the impermanence of the cosmos, the passive aggressive comments from coworkers, the diarrhea. Then you will throw your hands in the air because you just don’t care. And you will leave your out-of-office response on until April.