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Did you know that feeling stressed out is completely optional? You make the choice regarding whether you want to feel stress in your life. If you decide that you don’t have a choice, you’re effectively choosing to feel stress, since that is the ‘default’ option programmed by our culture. Here’s my prediction. More and more studies will soon be emerging showing that stress is more damaging to your health than smoking multiple packs of cigarettes a day. If such a case proves to be correct, that sort of puts things into perspective if you claim to be a health-conscious individual.

Why are you choosing to incorporate stress into your life?

Stress Is Real! Isn’t It?

Up until now, you’ve probably thought stress was the inevitable result of trying to make your way in the world. That’s the common assumption, perpetrated by counselors and teachers who are addicted to stress themselves.

What benefit is there in insisting that stress is our natural lot in life? And why are you, as an individual, living the stress-addled life when it’s so easy to live a stress-free life?

Fear As a Motivator

To understand how to break the stress habit, we have to understand the basic model of stress itself. And stress is pretty simple to understand – it derives all of its power from seriousness.

Imagine for a moment that you didn’t take anything seriously. Nothing. You’d waltz through life with happy disregard for your health, wealth, and even your life. As a semi truck swerved into your lane and you were about to die, you’d be able to say ‘Cool! How many people get to experience this?’

Instead, we live on a precipice, always gritting our teeth because our reputation, our career, and our health and life are ridiculously precarious. Any of these areas of our life could suffer a devastating blow at any time, and we’d be pretty naïve if we thought we could go for long without at least one of them taking a downward turn!

Now, it would be fine to not take life seriously at all, but wouldn’t that have some consequences? Like a rather short life span? After all, it’s our concern and striving that serve as a survival tool, as well as help us to ‘get somewhere’ in life. Right?

But look at that statement. It’s basically acknowledging a fear-based approach to life. My concern (fear) is what keeps me from taking undue risks, and my constant striving (also fear-based) is what helps me make progress.

Where in the world did we get the assumption that fear was the only motivator in life?

This fear-based response delivers the familiar feeling of stress – a tight, clenched feeling of being overwhelmed as we strive ever harder to keep up with our own impossible demands.

What’s Really Important?

A non-dualistic perspective will show us that the things we took so seriously before aren’t really that serious. To understand this, we must first realize that we’re on auto-pilot most of the time, pursuing our life goals without ever giving them much thought. Sit for a while and think about the things you’re striving after. What do you really think they will give you? What, when you’re lying on your death-bed, will you regard as having been important in your life?

A little observation will show you that the only way you’re really going to be happy is if you can be happy with this very moment. The endless quest for More is just that – an endless quest with a surprise ending. The surprise? That you’ve worked all your life to gain more and more ’stuff’ that doesn’t matter one bit.

Ask yourself what really matters to you. If you think that having lots of money matters, you’re probably wrong. What you really want is what money can get you. And why do you want those things? Be honest, and don’t stop asking yourself questions until you’ve truly gotten to the bottom of it. Most of us, in the end, will find that what we really want is to be happy in this very moment. Not only do we realize that happiness is what makes life so amazing, but we realize that we’ll be able to spread happiness everywhere we go, just by our example.

Think of your best friend. Let’s say you can give them one of two gifts – a million dollars, or happiness. If you give the million dollars, how do you think that will affect your friend? Will it provide happiness next year? What about twenty years from now? What about on their death bed?

But happiness – that’s a gift which keeps giving. With true happiness, every moment can be seen in a positive light. Not only can your friend finally be happy, regardless of their circumstances, but they can quit putting all their life energies into constant striving!

Play As a Motivator

What if we could do that? Re-direct all our life energies that we devote to constantly trying to maintain our relationships, career, and finances? Can you imagine how much energy we devote to these things each day? An immense amount! That’s why many folks are exhausted when they get home, even though they’ve only been sitting at a desk all day.

What, then, might we do with all this energy?

If you’ve looked into what’s really important, you’ll have found a very loving way to view yourself, and you’ll naturally view others in the same way. From this perspective, there is only one thing to do with this energy. That is Play.

I use the word ‘play’, but I want to clarify what I mean. This sort of play is not frivolous – it’s fun. It means I can go to work, and instead of striving all day long, I can simply apply my energies to what’s going on. You’ll quickly find that no matter what your work, it takes very little energy to do it. Or at least much less energy than you were devoting before. It’s as simple as paying attention to each moment. When someone steps into your workspace, you’ll be able to engage them completely, and why not have fun with it? Send them away smiling. When a new task is put before you, you’ll find that it doesn’t take much effort at all to complete it. As I’ve metioned before, life is actually terribly easy. It’s only our seriousness that makes things difficult.

The 95% Rule

The average person spends about 95% of their daily energy in worry, stress, and frustration. Let’s imagine that I’m going to do the dishes. The task is ridiculously simple. I just do the dishes, and that’s it. But what if I take the usual approach?

‘Why did people let the dishes build up this high? And the sink is filthy – I’m going to have to stack them all out of the sink first. Why are people so inconsiderate to just throw them in there like that? GROSS! What is that thing in that cup? How long have these been sitting here???’

I can go on and on like this, expending tremendous mental energy on what otherwise would have been a simple task. Another common example is going in for surgery. My surgery is in two weeks. Here’s what I have to do. Walk into the building, hold my arm out for a shot, and go to sleep. That’s it. Effortless. But what do I do? I fret for two weeks, imagining all the horrors that could go wrong, lying awake at night in fear. I spend two weeks of life effort on something that takes no effort at all.

But Life is Frightening!

It is, when we are on auto-pilot. In this mode, we believe the usual cultural message – that we must strive our entire lives to get more and more and more.

But when we just let it all go? When we truly examine what’s important to us? Then we can’t take life seriously any more, and we can play at each moment. And the ironic end result? We usually end up much wealthier, with better friends, a better love life, and much more of all the things we were striving after before! Why? Because now 100% of our energy can go into each moment, and we’re not wasting all our energy in fruitless effort.

Letting go of stress is effortless – it’s having stress that takes lots of work. Maybe it’s time to stop working so hard to upkeep the stress in your life!

If letting go doesn’t seem to be working, it’s probably that you’re trying. This site is designed to help you learn to let go. You might want to start with the Enlightenment Handbook.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 24th, 2006 at 11:16 pm and is filed under Stress. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be queued for moderation and posted as quickly as possible.