Stress adds a weight to our lives that can be damaging in too many ways. For many, stress is accepted as a sign of vigor, accomplishment, meeting expectations, and even valor. In our culture, in many ways, it's sometimes a badge of honor to be unduly stressed meaning that you are going beyond the call of duty and doing more than anyone expected of you. We sometimes compliment each other for enduring and/or living up to stressful situations. This is an aspect of our culture that I would like to eliminate as undue stress is not healthy and often leads to behaviors that are not good for us or others.
When lawmakers work all night, the press often lauds their efforts when in truth we know that working all night actually negatively affects what they can do at that time and after that. Sleep is critical to good decision making and good health. Instead, I believe that lawmakers should work from 11am to 7pm--that's a good eight hours that's accessible from most timezones in the USA. Also that gives lawmakers time for recreation, rest, and healthy habits.
The same is true for any profession. I believe that professions should have reasonable, healthy expectations for work schedules. If the job can't be done in eight hours, then hire more employees. In looking at our own lives, it's good to take account of how much stress we put on each other and ourselves. Do you work too long? Are your expectations for yourself superhuman? Do you hang on to impossible situations for too long? Do you try to do everything yourself rather than getting help when you need it? When we literally stress ourselves out, we may lose our temper more often, eat or drink too much or too little, interact with others in more caustic, unfriendly, and unhelpful ways, and not get the sleep we need.
Going forward, I want to be more mindful of stress with my expectations for self and others, and with my responses to others' requests and insinuations.
If someone asks me to do something that is too stressful, I may agree to do some, but not al of the task, or I may decline the request altogether.
I'll still try to do what I can to be helpful and supportive in situations, but I'll try to plan ahead more and complete tasks ahead of time in order to mitigate stress.
And, I'll seek that healthy, positive routine that enables one to deal with life's natural stresses well.
In my opinion, we lay way too much stress on each other in our culture, and it's time to focus on greater health and less stress for everyone. Onward.
