Chill

A lecturer, when explaining stress management to an audience, raised a glass of water and asked, "How heavy is this glass of water?"

Answers called out ranged from 20g to 500g. The lecturer replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long you try to hold it."

"If I hold it for a minute, that's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you'll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it's the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes."

He continued, "And that's the way it is with stress management. If we carry our burdens all the time, sooner or later, as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won't be able to carry on. As with the glass of water, you have to put it down for a while and rest before holding it again. When we're refreshed, we can carry on with the burden."

"So, before you return home tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burdens you're carrying now, let them down for a moment if you can. Relax; pick them up later after you've rested. Life is short. Enjoy it!"

And then he shared some ways of dealing with the burdens of life:

* Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.
* Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.
* Drive carefully. It's not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
* If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.
* If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
* It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.
* Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won't have a leg to stand on.
* Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.
* Since it's the early worm that gets eaten by the bird, sleep late.
* The second mouse gets the cheese.
* When everything's coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
* Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live.
* You may be only one person in the world to some people, but to one person, you may be the world.
* Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
* We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names, and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box.
* A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

For the record, I am not stressed. I have been (like you couldn't tell), but most of it is now out of my system. After The Big Stress, everyday run-of-the-mill stressors are small potatoes. Like, I got a rejection notice this week and it didn't even faze me. As long as I don't think about The Big One, the residual ooga-booga neener-neener effects won't get me. "Impervious to stress" may be the dumbest thing I never said, but what the heck. For the nonce, I am claiming im-freaking-pervious. And it had better hold for at least twenty-four hours. If I make it through another night without lightning striking me down, and another, and then another few, it will by default be a true statement, no? Yes. Shoot, I'm so cool, calm, and stress-free that I'm thinking of taking up snake handling or something.

Your Love Number is 6

Who you fall in love with is all about who you trust. Loyalty is important to you, and you want the most faithful of lovers. In return, you never let your heart or eyes wander. Open and honest, your relationships tend to be free of secrets.

What Is Your Love Number?