or coffee, watch television right? No! A thousand times, no! Of course there are more legitimate
treatments which thousands of people are trying such as massage, aromatherapy, acupuncture,
exercise, music and Prozac. But easy come, easy go. What needs to be treated is the cause,
not the symptoms. Some causes are quite trivial,such as poor time-management leading to
breached deadlines and a warning from the boss. A second cause is a failure to decide priorities,
leading to the completion of hundreds of "unimportant" tasks say, at the office and the neglect
of one very important responsibility say, a child's upbringing or a marital tension.
Putting aside these two amendable areas, let us focus on circumstances which really
are beyond our human capacity to control yet we feel compelled to, nevertheless. Doctors hate
discovered it is this feeling of compulsion combined with helplessness that leads to the psycho
-physiological symptorms of stress: anxiety, insomnia, lethargy, irritability, depression, weakened
immune system, high BP, cardiovascular problems and atherosclerosis.
Stress isn't anyone's delicacy. So why do people whip themselves to work so hard,
even though matters are totally beyond their scope of control? The fact is, Dr Dean Ornish
explains in his best selling book Reversing Heart Disease Without Medicine or Surgery that
deep within the psyche even the rich and famous people feel inadequate and lacking in
some personal area and consequentially isolated even though they may actually be in the
midst and approval of hundreds or even thousands of people! Because of these feelings of loss
or lack they feel, "If only I had more money, or more power more parental approval, more brains,
education, talent, more friends, athletic ability, better looks or a thinner waist then people would
acknowledge me, appreciate me, love me and then I'd be happy and fulfiled."
Rot. The bottom line is, feelings of self esteem or self worth can only come from within,
from your own soul and never from anybody else's sanction. There exists no worldly basis for
establishing a true foundation for one's self esteem: ideas about worth and value change in
different circumstances and are truly subjective. So don't worry about becoming something. In
principle and in practice,you just have to be. And the good news is, what you are already your
spiritual self is greater than any human power or material object in this universe! Whether or not
somebody else can appreciate this fundamental truth or not is immaterial. When you appreciate
it and live by it-it is enough. Investing in material things and enjoyments is as irrational as pouring
one's money into a collapsing bank. For doesn't mean just losing, it means being a loser. Failing
doesn't mean just failing ,it means being a failure. the sad truth is 99 percent of people invest this way.
failure. One individual while talking to another wonders whether he or she is a success, attractive
or intelligent while the other thinking precisely the same thing about him or her!
Nearly everyone wants to be soothed by the appreciation of others. Said tennis superstar
Boris Becker in with World Tennis magazine, "I wanted to find love and friendship through sports.
That's where 1 found my self approval.. I very frequently think about the meaning of life because
I live through so many extreme moments. I cannot do more than win Wimbledon.. I thought more
than once that it be so bad if I died at that moment." The Royal Bank of Canada devoted one of
its monthly letters to this almost ubiquitous problem with the title Let's Slow Down. "We are victims
of mounting tension," it wrote. "We have difficulty relaxing: we are not living fully."
Solution: try to do things slowly, without pressure. Don't keep "going for the kill" with
deadlines in every matter. Once you realize where the pain in your life is coming from, it
becomes easier to discard it. "One needs awareness," says Pramukh Swami Maharaj. And, he,
adds, "Whatever you think may happen, never keep tension. It merely makes you iritiable and
impatient. Remain peaceful. God is the all doer, not us. Understanding this ultimate truth brings
peace to soul." We must stop trying to play God and take back position as clerks. Stress is only
a symptom of trying to something one isn't. Stress management: you may call become
it managing one's ego.
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