My friend Wendy stole her mantra from her 22-month-old daughter, Ella. At a neighborhood festival, Ella was bouncing around in a castle-shaped moon jump when she found herself nose-to-nose with a little boy whose entire face had been transformed by the face painters into a fearsome Spiderman. She fled in terror, and Wendy consoled her by explaining, "It's only paint!"

In the weeks following, Ella would use those three words as a way to confirm with her mom that all was well, despite fear or confusion. "It's only paint, right Mom?"

Wendy got to thinking, and even writing, about the full meaning of this little shorthand. And she realized that it applied as much to mother as daughter:

"So many things in our lives are superficial, although we transfer to them a greater meaning without true cause," she wrote. "When I scuff my newly waxed floor, or when I cannot get through a work assignment because I am focusing too much on the words and not the product, I have to step back and say at the end of the day, 'It's just paint!'

"I now understand that it is the stuff underneath the paint that counts. At the end of most days, 'It's just paint.'"