“I promise you nothing is as chaotic as it seems. Nothing is worth diminishing your health. Nothing is worth poisoning yourself into stress, anxiety, and fear.” ― Steve Maraboli

STRESS - THE HAPPINESS KILLER

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Over the last few years, I have become acutely aware of how stress literally sucks the happiness and passion out of a person. You can take the most resilient and driven individual and place them under continued and severe stress, and the outcome is almost a different person entirely.

Not only does the passion and happiness vaporise from their character like a thief in the night but everything else about them changes too… their behaviour, moods… ALL OF IT!

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I have had many conversations with my dad about stress over the last few years and I think there comes a time and stage in your life when you realise that it simply isn’t worth it anymore. Sacrificing everything of yourself, killing yourself on a daily basis, lowering the quality of your lifestyle in general, all… mostly… for MONEY! Sadly, though – the reality is that most of us don’t feel like we have a choice, but to subject ourselves to these insanely overloaded levels of stress, as we need to provide. We need to put food on the table, pay bills and a million other little boxes that need to be checked.

But, I am not so sure I agree with that thought process anymore… I think we all DO have a choice and if a life of quality is something that you want, then perhaps intermittent sacrifice is necessary in order to achieve it, but at some point there should be a time cut off. Either you are successful in your endeavor to achieve something or you need to accept the fact that it is not working and you either need to reassess the process, or try something different.

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The thing however, is that most people give and give and give, moving in circles in an endless and fruitless pattern and then one day, when they are completely depleted and there is nothing left of themselves, they snap – and then it all falls apart anyway…

Why do we do that to ourselves? Why do we allow it to get to such a point? Why don’t we have the sense to see how all of it is literally ROBBING us of “ourselves” and our “life” – and then start taking steps towards changing it?! Obviously I realise the realities of life come into play for everyone… but even in the tightest and most seemingly impossible situations, a way can be made to change things, if the desire is truly there.

We spend a huge percentage of the time in our lives working, thinking about work, planning for work… so on and so forth. One day, we will look again – 20 years will have passed and we will be standing in the same spot, feeling even more frustrated, stagnant and stressed than we were when we started - and to my mind, that is just simply SUCH a waste of the life you have been afforded. Severe stress will literally strip all the things of value from your life…. Taking away the time to enjoy all the things that ACTUALLY matter in our time here… like time with your kids, family and friends. Moments to sit back, put your feet up and enjoy a sunset… taking a walk on the beach with your dogs, cooking at leisure, travelling, meeting new people – oh the list goes on and on!!!!

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We are supposed to be adding enrichment to our lives as we get older… not the opposite, yet as modern society changes and the demands on all of us increase, it definitely seems to be moving in the wrong direction for many.

I realise that my words don’t carry much weight in terms of ACTUAL PHYSICAL change in other people’s lives, but I do hope that they at the very least plant the seed of change! Each and every one of us can achieve absolutely ANYTHING we put our minds to and I really think people should put focus on reducing stress levels, adding quality and finding a healthy balance between the two.

“Where'd the days go, when all we did was play? And the stress that we were under wasn't stress at all just a run and a jump into a harmless fall” ― Paolo Nutini

No amount of money can ever replace all the moments that slip passed you whilst you are so consumed with all your stresses…

I read this quote once by Helen Keller and it truly resonated with me and illustrates precisely what I am attempting to outline here, so I thought I would share it with you.

“I began my studies with eagerness. Before me I saw a new world opening in beauty and light, and I felt within me the capacity to know all things. In the wonderland of Mind I should be as free as another [with sight and hearing]. Its people, scenery, manners, joys, and tragedies should be living tangible interpreters of the real world. The lecture halls seemed filled with the spirit of the great and wise, and I thought the professors were the embodiment of wisdom... But I soon discovered that college was not quite the romantic lyceum I had imagined. Many of the dreams that had delighted my young inexperience became beautifully less and "faded into the light of common day." Gradually I began to find that there were disadvantages in going to college. The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures – solitude, books and imagination – outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day.” ― Helen Keller

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Until next time...

Much Love from Cape Town, South Africa xxx

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