De-Stressing

I received an article in my email today about 22 Affordable Ways to De-Stress.  To be honest I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.  You see, today was a very bad day.  Murphy, of the Murphy’s Law fame, had visited me with a vengeance.  Leaving me ready to raise my white flag in defeat.

I’ll recap some of the recommended methods of de-stressing that I thought could prove to be a little dangerous for a person on the edge:

1. Visit the Shooting Range – Who hasn’t had an urge to destroy something, it is usualy a passing fancy that I know that I can’t act on.  But never in my wildest dreams would I give a stressed out individual a gun.  Even to shoot at a poor defenseless target.  You never know when the shooter might just snap.

2. Cook a Delicious Dinner with the Items you have in your Fridge – In principle this sounds good.  But the typical stressed out person usually has many questionable things in their refrigerator that no amount of cooking will kill the bacteria that will likely send you to the emergency room.  Instead, take yourself out to your favorite restaurant or have a potluck with friends.

3. Make “To-Do” Lists and Actively Check Items Off – In theory, this might sound like you are accomplishing things. But if I were to have one more list on top of the myriad of lists that I have and keep track of for other people, I would have to take the gun from number 1 and find the author of this article.

4. Take a Long Drive – I can only see this working if you don’t live in a heavily populated area.  Commuter traffic is enough to make a person mental.  Five minutes on the road with people behind the wheel on cell phones makes me tighter than a snare drum.  Nope, no long drive for me.

I know that the author(s) of this article were only trying to help. De-Stressing in today’s workplace is a highly personal process but extremely necessary.

My only advice is find your center and take the time to relax.  Do whatever it takes, you will be a better person for it.

Just keep away from fire arms.

Jenga!

Sometimes I liken my job to a fast paced game of Jenga. You know that game that starts out with a tower of wooden blocks, each player strategically removes one, then places it on the top of the tower.  The object of the game is to not let the tower collapse on your turn. 

The tower wobbles as you gently pull the block out of the position you have chosen.  If you’ re lucky, it is an easy block.  But if your opponents have played the game well, all you have left are blocks that are critical to the the structure of the tower.  Anything you remove with bring the tower crashing down.

The thing is that the inevitable outcome of the game is the collapse of the tower.  And so it is with my job. 

So many of my responsibilities and duties often rest on one block, one person.  When that block is removed, everything can come crashing down around my ears.  Does this mean that I’ve done nothing to shore things up?  Or make contingency plans?  Of course not, I’ve been planning for these moments so the impact is not as significant. 

It always stings when the blocks come tumbling down around my ears.  In the end, I always build a better structure