of their behavior upon others. Instead they find nothing wrong with stealing people’s property, jobs, spouses, and human dignity.
Haven’t you had enough?
If you find yourself unable to sleep, or awaking in the middle of the night with your heart pounding in your chest, you are not alone. Stress has caused sleep distress of great magnitude, where exhaustion follows sleeplessness, and dulls the mind as well as the spirit. You have only to take notice of your friends and co-workers to see the stress they wear across their faces like masks, their dull eyes dazed, staring at nothing at all. Jaws muscles are clenched in anticipation of more unhappiness, more turmoil, more criticism and more stress.
This stress is not only found in the workplace. It accompanies shoppers as they walk through the aisles, attempting to further stretch already tight budgets, calculating those groceries which will have to be returned to the shelves for another time. Stress lives in your home, sits along side you on the couch, and comes through your television set and radio with news of impossibly unthinkable acts of violence and loss. Stress sleeps in your bed, grows in your garden, and waits for you at your doorstep.
Is There Hope?
Emotionally, we are a world numbed with sadness and horror. Tear-stained faces collectively wonder if there is anything left to be done, if there is anything left for which to hope.
The answer is not complicated, but just as the obvious is often overlooked, we have been searching in all the wrong places. We are the hope! Each one of us carrying our hope forward, initially alone, but then joined by others, their hope linking into ours, forming a group and then a crowd. United we can spill onto the streets, a mob that comes not in anger, but in peace. We can decide that enough is enough, and all of us together can stop this insanity. Someone has to begin with one step. Will it be you?
How Did We Come to This?
So much of how we spend our time daily is in direct conflict to those things that are important individually. We sacrifice our needs and instead line up like laboratory rats, following each other through the maze on our way to work and home again, believing that we are doomed to spend the rest of our days living a life of terminal sadness. We have been promised that if we work hard, we will earn more money, and if we earn a certain amount of money, we will become happy. We are taught that hard work is its own reward, but after decades of working, people are still being laid off or demoted, especially now.
The pride that once pushed individuals to never give up has been lost. As well, self-respect and respect of others has been all but forgotten in the quest to forge ahead. It is no wonder that those of us who continue to do the right thing are mired knee-deep in the muck of stress.
Stress is running rampant through the streets. It comes up with the sun and shines with the stars. It pours down on you in a rainstorm and chokes you in the heat. Stress can only win if there is no opposition. It will not win if you decide to reclaim what is yours.
Believe There is Something More Waiting for You
There is still something to believe in. (Believe. v. To accept as true, genuine or real.) There is still you, the true you who owns your thoughts, philosophies, hopes and dreams. You still possess your opinions and judgments, your creativity and talent, and regardless of the opposition, those things cannot be taken away. So the problem is not that you have lost your integrity, dignity, and self-respect, but that you have become complacent to the power of stress. There is nothing as resilient as the human spirit, and so long as you have that, you have the ability to turn things around.
Our Brain: A Quick Explanation on a Complicated Issue
Most people understand the concept of intellect, that some individuals are smarter than others. Most think of the human brain as nothing more than a system of memory cards in which information is stored. In fact, our brain is much more than that. Our brain has been taught to recognize danger, to evaluate situations, to make instant, life-saving decisions relying upon stored information, reacting spontaneously in situations requiring immediate action. More importantly, our brain can be trained to rest, recharging its mental and emotional resources for a sustained period of time while refueling. This rest is essential in making good decisions, using good judgment, and perceiving situations accurately. Yet our brain is often deprived of that much needed rest because we exist in a state of continual stress.
The Good Old Days
Several generations ago, with no electricity and nothing else to do, families spent evenings in front of a roaring fire, sharing stories, solving problems, and planning for the future. There was a shared camaraderie and kinship to shoulder the bad times together, while reveling in the good times in celebration. In today’s world we are lucky if we spend five minutes with each other, eating fast food, tossing out disposable utensils and racing to take the children to baseball practice or piano lessons. At night after they are tucked safely in their beds, we unpack our briefcases to finish the work that has spilled over from the office, until with bleary eyes, we fall into bed.
When is the last time you pulled up a chair under the stars and just sat still, in awe of the great universe in which we live? When was the last time you picked up a good book and delved into the pages with utter abandon? It is likely that unless you are retired, these simple acts are going to be put off for quite a few years. Progress has robbed us of simpler times. As recently as three decades ago, children came home from school, ate a snack, completed their homework and stayed in for the night. There were no shopping malls, no nighttime school activities, and no held-over dinners. Dinner hour was considered sacred. Schools and employers alike understood the need for the dinner hour, and arranged schedules accordingly. It was the rare family that didn’t sit down together to a hot, home-cooked meal.
The Association of Societal Change and Stress
Families were steeped in tradition. No one questioned the gender-role relationships and for better or worse, everyone seemed to work together with synchronicity. Then there were dissenters, claiming gender bias, and unfair opportunities for women. Men balked and women protested for equal rights and equal pay. They were no longer happy in tradition. The changes did come, but unfortunately the anticipated happiness was not without some much unanticipated stress with the restructuring of traditional roles.
Families began splintering, and the single-parent household was born. With the new wave of divorce, blended families, and male and female workers outside the home, children began acting out in confusion. Right or wrong, there was no turning back. The only thing left to do was to take inventory, accelerate damage control, and try to sort out the disorder of life.
Am I Alone in My Feelings?
Let’s break this down in simple terms. You may feel alone, but you are not alone. In this vast ocean of stress, everyone is treading water over their heads. They are all caught in rip currents, being tossed one way and then another, in fear of drowning. You may want to stop swimming, to give up, but you cannot. When everything inside you wants to scream, “enough!” there is the whisper in your ear that reminds you that there is still hope. Listen to life’s whisper. It is the voice of Satori.
One day it occurred to me. All my life I said, “If only I had a (successful career…a supportive spouse…a glamorous house…etc) I could be happy. But I had all those things, and I still was not happy. Not only that, but I couldn’t recall the last time I was happy. I mean there were fleeting moments…the thrill of finishing a big project at work, or lying on some exotic beach during a vacation, but the happiness I was searching for was the happiness that comes in the form of unbridled joy, childlike enthusiasm, deep gratitude, and the satisfaction of a life lived to its fullest.
Like our storyteller, most of us tend
