…That stress should be a motivator?
… as long as one doesn’t over-indulge in being motivated…
I am most definitely not alone in stress department. One doesn’t have to be insanely busy to experience the tensions of modern life. Even though stress is most obvious in a work-a-day world… where deadlines and demands are the common denominator… it lives in the simplest of every day events and thoughts. It is about whether we can do this or whether that is going to happen. It is about watching the news or listening to people hate upon each other because, it would seem, that is the only way for the world to communicate these days. It is about whether something can be afforded… or thinking too much of the future. It is about wondering if you are able to live up to a potential or the more than often incorrect feeling that you are going to be discovered as a fraud. It is about moving to a new place while leaving familiarity behind. It is about starting a new routine or not knowing what your routine is going to be. It is about loss. It is about too much gain. It is about overwhelm… it is about not enough. Stress is potentially in everything and lives everywhere….
Including the paragraph above…. because I don’t know about you but it certainly stressed ME out.
There was time in my life that I dreaded stress. I thought it represented a “period” of time and that there were certain indicators or triggers that started the process. Naively I would suspect that when I wasn’t too busy at work or feeling the anxieties of one thing or another … that meant I was not stressed.
Then I learned.
Stress is emotional. Stress is hereditary. Stress is about personality and pre-disposition. Stress IS. I have been stressed out on holiday, while sleeping, getting massages and during sex (whoops… too much information?) Stress is something that has been a piece of who I am for as long as I can remember. Not until I realized it, however, did I discover that it isn’t going away… so I had to befriend it and put it to work for me… and not against me. I needed to capitalize on the positives of stress (What? There are positives?) and make sure that the benefits took over and started to outweigh the negatives.
Keeping this in mind I also learned by taming or (dare I say) controlling my stress I was able to start becoming LESS stressed out. At first I wondered if that would be possible… or if I would be the one that would find myself in a stressful way as I tried to create the habits of making the evident and malleable tensions that color my personality work for me. Idiosyncratic, eh? Getting stressed out about dealing with stress sounds like being in a rush in traffic so you can get to yoga. It doesn’t tend to work together. But we all know that habits have to be created in a series of repetitive actions and the period of creation is often uncomfortable and almost counterproductive.
Definitely frustrating.
But once a soul realizes that there is power in anything you put your mind to you can take the world around you and use it. Today I see the flaws that surround me… and I understand them. They are perfect… and they are imperfect. They are a bit of what I don’t want to be and a bit of either who I am or who I have been. Removing the judgment allows me to concentrate on the positives that are involved in the simplest and most complex pieces of my daily experience.
You have no idea how hard it is to recognize the stresses in driving a car in Los Angeles traffic and stop yourself from letting it matter. That habit involves a constant reminder that you do not “need” to be anywhere any quicker and that the people who are doing all these ill-fitted and inane moves all around you are blips on the radar in the grand scheme of who you are or who you would intend to be. Stop. Breathe. Keep driving with a smile. It is amazing how much that smile will work. It often turns into a laugh…. and before you know it you are at your destination… with less stress than you would ever have expected.
In my world I have never quite been a victim… but without knowing it we can allow ourselves to be victimized by the stresses and the more “powerful” personalities in the world around us. That isn’t necessary and to combat one does not have to become louder or more obnoxious than the next guy. Instead you must use what is in your life to your best benefit. All of it. The place you live, the weather of the day, the mood of the people around you, your job, your education, your desire to learn, your need to rest and relax. All of it should be seized in order to maximize the potential of the adrenalin within it.
Stress as a motivator.
Everything is potential if you want it to be so.
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.