Stress? What Stress?


By Bonnie Boots

I woke up Sunday morning with a strange feeling, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, and it occurred to me that I should check my blood pressure-something I probably don't do often enough. I dug around until I found the apparatus, wrapped the cuff on and waited for the numbers to pop up on the screen.

When they did, I popped up off the bed. My blood pressure reading, usually steady as a rock, had risen from 120/80 to 150/97.

That's why I was in the doctor's office on Monday, anxiously waiting for her to read through my test results. "I don't see anything indicating a medical problem," she said. "Have you been under any stress?"

"No," I said. "Last week was pretty normal."

If my life were a movie, the camera would have panned away from me on the doctor's table to a dreamy shot of me in a 1940's style bathing suit and swim cap, al la Esther Williams, grandly performing my Olympic-style breaststroke straight up the River Denial.

Yes, last week was pretty normal… for a Cirque du Soleil performer. After all, I'm quite accustomed to juggling 18 projects and a 3- foot long "to-do" list while dancing on my toes across a thin, high wire stretched across a chasm of other responsibilities. And did I mention that someone dear to me has just died?

No, doctor, my life has been pretty normal. Stress? WHAT STRESS?

In all honesty, it took me until Wednesday to even begin questioning if what I regard as normal weren't just a tad beyond my limits. After all, I live in the age of the multi-tasker, when the people with the most frantic lives are held in the highest regard. So we text message our friends while listening to the news as we eat breakfast over the steering wheel on our drive to work in the morning, and think nothing of it, because this is just the way life is.

But this isn't the way life has always been.

Life, for many thousands of years, set limits on human beings. Nature allowed us only so many daylight hours for work. In the dark, we rested. So we invented electric light, and extended our work hours.

Nature allowed us to only talk to people sharing our physical space, only see events taking place in our own neighborhood. So we invented telephones and television, and extended how far we could see and hear and talk.

And now we've gone on a technological bender, developing gadgets that let us get rid of almost every limitation nature ever imposed. And now, I fear, w we're all well on our way to boiling frog syndrome.

"Boiling frog syndrome" says that a frog placed in boiling water will jump out, but a frog placed in cool water that is slowly heated will remain in place until it boils to death. The story is usually told as a metaphor to illustrate that gradual habitation to unhealthy situations leads to acceptance---or worse. And while anyone that's spent any time with frogs knows the story is likely untrue, it's point applies to me and perhaps to you.

I've allowed the temperature of my workload to rise, slowly, slowly, and I thought I was handling everything perfectly well, but the fact is, the water was getting pretty hot.

When I heard the news of my friend's death, my entire emotional terrain shifted under my feet, but I never missed a beat. I continued meeting deadlines and making deals, and simply made room in my schedule for necessary death duties by giving up a little more sleep. And never felt the water come to a boil.

If I were writing this article for a newspaper, I'd wrap it up with the traditional list of "10 Ways To Reduce Stress," or "8 Ways To Beat Boiling Frog Syndrome," but I'm not writing this for a newspaper. I'm writing to you, to friends that struggle, as I do, to find a way to balance their own needs with the demands on their life.

I don't have the answer…yet. Just a question. How can we be so good at juggling and so bad at balancing? Perhaps we're not meant to live the Cirque du Soleil life, after all.



About the Author

Bonnie Boots is the publisher/editor of The Internet Wizards Magazine for people who want to create their own products and market on the internet. Register for your free 1-year subscription at http://www.theinternetwizards.com