In The World of My Stress.

 

On my way to work today I felt pretty stressed.  It usually happens to me.  However, my problems are hardly insurmountable and my fears hardly warranted.  Indeed, I do not know of anyone who has had warranted fears.  Fear, for me at least, comes about when I am jarred from peace.  However, I have been looking for outward peace to substitute inner peace.  And when we try and substitute the definition of happiness for peace we are letting ourselves in for a great deal of sadness, disappointment, and of course stress.

 

We live in a harried and archipelic[1] world. It is a world where stress is ours to own, to keep, to hold in ourselves.  In life, however, we do not know how to deal with stress.  There are two things I know about stress:

 

1)    Each person has a unique language as to how their stress writes itself in one’s life.

2)    Stress must either move and be held in your psyche or pass through it.  If too much passes through, you are probably not taking things seriously enough.  If too much is bottled up … well, I needn’t tell you how damaging that can be to someone.

 

Stress is a lot like water: powerful and peaceful.  It has many different qualities, properties, stages, and even contents[2].  In my life, I internalize my stress.  I let it become stagnant in my heart.  Instead, I need to let it pass by like a river stream.  Cool, forward moving without chaotic and devastating rushes; a stream brings life and purpose to all that is around it.  To stop the flow is to be in painful stagnation.

 

This is the first stage for me to understand stress.  I will discuss the improper defining of peace as happiness and how I should handle my stress differently in my next blog posts.  Right now, I need to get ready for work.

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[1] That is a world of archipelagos.  Don’t look it up, I felt like making a word.

[2] Water picks up silt or salt or many other things.  They aren’t water, but they make a body of water that body just as much as the water itself.  Stress is unique in its contents as well.  Stress of love or work is very different.