Draw the Line

Change. I have a love hate relationship with change. I love change for the excitement it brings and the spice it adds to life. But at the same time it directly relates to stress. Maybe I am just high strung but, now that I really think about it, no change also causes me stress. The fact that my circumstances seem to have no bearing on whether I feel stressed or not leads me to believe that I am just doomed to be a stressed out person. It could be how I was trained to exist as a child... Maybe.

So back on the topic of change. There are a couple of facts that need to be realized about this. First, change relates to fear. Change in and of itself isn't a bad thing but the fear of the unknown that it brings with it can cause us problems. Now, when I say fear I don't mean that someone will necessarily be hiding in the corner of their room because they get a new manager at work or because the cereal aisle was moved in their favorite grocery store. However, both of these examples bring up certain unknowns that may affect ones life. And on some level people typically have some sort of fear of the unknown. It can be the seen in the apprehension one may have because one's job may change. Or it can be identified by a simple frustrated sigh when entering the reorganized grocery because it may take you a little longer to find what you need and therefore throw your day off just enough to cause you seemingly unneeded annoyance. In either case the underlying feeling, no matter how minute, is fear.

The next linkage to make is that fear equals stress. I believe that the word stress used in this context is a fairly new practice. It was simply a nice way of saying, "life is scaring you right now." You see, stress, and therefore fear are cumulative. It adds up. And as it adds up natural responses to fear kick in to try to keep the body safe. Similar to how reflexes will typically try to pull you quickly away from a scary situation or something that hurts. Also, the way people will scream when under extreme duress. Aren't these both actions that you at least feel like performing when under stress?

So what do we do? How do we overcome this difficulty. Surely the human race has been able to discover solutions to just about anything that stands in their way. There must be a balance. And I believe there is. It all goes back to tolerance levels. everyone must find their own balance. The fact that I have identified that I am always stressed doesn't necessarily mean that it is an unchangeable trait about myself. It only means I haven't identified where my tolerance level is. Or if I have I haven't been able to control the level of change in my life to meet that tolerance level.

So, at least half the battle is understanding yourself. Finding that line, or rather, tolerance level and working to control your lifestyle to hit that line as close as possible. The rest is perception. But we can get into that another day.
-M@