Stress and Strain

 

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Stress and Strain

Stress is not a part of our life – stress is nothing but our inability to manage our own system. Stress does not happen because of the nature of work – the Prime Minister says he is stressed, so does the owner of a conglomerate, so does the employee, the unemployed, the family man, the student, the teacher – everyone is stressed out. Why? This means that one is suffering because of the job – then one should quit – will that be the solution?

Obviously not – stress is not about the job. It is just that we do not know how to manage our body, our mind, our emotions, our energy – we do not know how to manage anything. We function by accident, so we feel the stress. If we get into a car and turn the wheel one way and the car goes another way, we will be stressed, isn’t it? That is how we are today. We are blundering through life without understanding the purpose of our existence. Stress is not because of the nature of the activity that we are performing or because of life situations. Stress is simply because we do not know how to manage our own system. What is stressful for one person, another person just breezes through it, isn’t it?

When we learn to accept life situations and manage and control our reaction to such situations we begin to transform ourselves. We change the context of our life – meditation and yoga help us do that. We may not be in a position to change the content of our life, but we can definitely change the context of our life.

There is this story where three men working in a place. Another man came and asked the first man, “What are you doing here?” He replied, “I am cutting this stone, can’t you see?” He asked the second man the same question, the response was, “I am doing whatever that person tells me to do so that I can fill my stomach.” The third man when asked, responded with great joy, “I am building a beautiful temple here.” All of them were doing the same thing, but their experience of what they were doing was worlds apart.

Every human being, every moment of his/her life could be doing whatever he/she is doing in any one of these three contexts – and that will determine the quality of his/her life, not what he/she is actually doing. How simple or complex an activity is, does not change the quality of our life. With what context we do it changes the quality of our life.

If we look at our ability to handle various situations in our life, is it better when we are feeling happy or unhappy? When we are joyful, we are willing to take up any number of things and do it. When we are stressed, we don't want to do even the simplest things - it sets up a different kind of momentum within us.