- Perspective

It's interesting how things can be put into perspective when you actually take the time to look around you. I feel stressed sometimes about not enough time in the day to do a lot of things when I get home from work; money, there's never enough of it to do the things you want or to pay for the things you need. My brother Charles says no matter what, you will NEVER have enough money. I take that to mean that when you think you have enough money, you will then adjust your lifestyle to absorb any new windfall that blows your way.

But as stress goes, whenever I think the world is caving in around me, then Perspective taps me on the shoulder and says have a look. We have a dear friend who is fighting Stage IV cancer throughout her body; our next door neighbor had their nice car stolen right from their driveway, not ten minutes after I saw it parked there as I was leaving for work; a college buddy just experienced probably the worst three days of his life when he rolled his truck on an icy Nebraska interstate, then as he was on his way to returning his rental car at the airport he hit and killed a black Lab which darted out in front of him. And on his way home from the bus station after dropping off the rental car, he was harangued by a would-be mugger who joked about wanting all his money. Now that is stress.

I came across this article on NewYorkMetro.com about the ecology of stress.

Stress is an omnipresent fact of life ...� and it�s getting worse. We work harder� – an increase of almost four hours per week between the late eighties and the turn of the century. We take less holiday time than the Japanese. We need more money to pay for rising taxes and inflation. We worry about another terrorist attack. And, to top it all off, stress might even age us more quickly at the cellular level. Researchers in San Francisco just completed a study that found that chronic emotional stress erodes telomerase, an enzyme in our cells that helps extend our life span, keeping us young and healthy. The cells of the most stressed-out women in the studies were effectively aged ten years more than normal.

The worst work-related stress, Pickering says, is caused by jobs that offer people little power over their daily activities. �It�s the control that seems to matter the most,� he notes. �You might have a lot of work, but if you�re able to control the rate at which you have to deal with it, you�re okay. It�s when you feel helpless that it gets bad. You drop into a depressed state. You have much higher cortisol levels.�

The rest of the article (long) is pretty interesting.

I think I actually have it pretty good, going home from a day at work to see my lovely wife and beautiful son...