Stress 911

Yesterday I mowed the grass and trimmed the hedges.  It was a stress relief - the front of my house was beginning to look like the Adam's family lived here.  If worry is the interest paid on trouble before it is due, too often I would be maxed to the gills.  "Toxic" worriers are people who obsess over everything that could possibly go wrong - to the point of paralysis by analysis.  According to "studies," I was told this past week, that toxic worriers were 21/2 times more likely to suffer heart attacks than less stressed-out individuals.  In my brief life I have done a lot of things that were supposed to relieve my stress and worry.

How about the old - just "Don't worry, be Happy?" -remember that remedy? - didn't work for me.  

There are some suggestions that I found that do have promise. Like...

Using my Mastercard to pay off my Visa.

Popping some popcorn without putting the lid on.

When someone says,"Have a nice day!", tell them I have other plans. (rude!)

Make a list of things I have have already done. (short list - could be boring & more stressful)

Go shopping, Buy Everything, Sweat in them, Return them the next day! (Seems that this was a Seinfeld episode.)

Drive to work in reverse. (My aunt Clara did drive (not in reverse though) on the wrong side of the interstate from Jackson   to Houston one time - but she always seemed stressed out.)

Play my old records backwards and listen for subliminal messages. (never did this - now I have to find a record player to do it...I wonder if I can play CD's backward?)

Bill my doctor for the time I spent in his waiting room. (Now this is a good idea!)

Every time I begin to think that  paralyzing fear and worry only strikes other people, I take a good look in the mirror.  Nearly half the American people are consumed with one form or another of worry, says Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist & Harvard Medical School dude. The old English word for worry had the idea of someone choking.  The Greeks?  Being pulled into four different directions at one time.  Now that is a low blow.  Mainly because it describes me 90% of the time.


In know, I know - there is a thing called good worry - a worry that is suppose to lead to constructive action.  Not working for me.  But in theory that is how it is supposed to work.  Toxic worry on the other hand is something of which I am familiar.  It does just the opposite. It paralyzes.  I tend to brood, to ruminate, to wake up in the middle of the night. Meanwhile I don't take action. It sounds a lot like the servant who took his talent and hid it? Remember that gem from Bible School?

When I hear this parable, I immediately think that he was  "unfaithful" or "lazy," because, frankly, that's how the Good Book renders it.  While this is part of the picture, there is another vantage point from which I can view the actions of the servants in this parable. Why did the one servant shirk from developing his gift, while the other two invested their "talents" -- which one scholar estimates equal 15 years' wages! -- and made 100 percent profits?

Again - according to the Book -  the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, 'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.'" The key phrase for me is right in the middle: SO I WAS AFRAID.  Stressed, worried - and it got toxic. I  sympathize with the poor guy in this parable who, when given some money to invest, fell victim to paralysis by analysis, worried that he might lose the whole wad. So he buried it rather than buying bonds, banking it, or taking a chance with the bulls and bears of the stock market. When the CEO returned, heads rolled. (Sound familiar?)

Now - lets just speculate  - IF worry can inspire action or stop it cold. Accepting -- just for a moment -- the idea that the master was indeed "harsh" and someone who "[reaped] where [he] did not sow," look at the responses of the three servants. It's not that the first two didn't have their share of worry about this assignment. They were no doubt petrified to the bottom of their portfolios.

But maybe they had good worry, the worry that works. All three servants shared the same circumstances. They all had a harsh master. They were all given a job to do. They all had the same stockbrokers, investors to deal with. Two made worry work for them; the third was poisoned by it.
In today's arena, they might have purchased an Internet stock at its initial public offering; or perhaps they became "day traders," captains of the new economy shuttling funds, internet savvy, into this stock and out of that with a rapidity that can make your head spin. (Thinking this may be one of the problems with today's Dow averages).  Whatever the motivation, and whatever they did, these two servants did something substantial: The returned a handsome profit to their master. And, indeed, the master in this parable was pleased with their work, rewarding each for their effort and success.

But the third servant froze in his tracks. (There I am - again!)  Maybe he believed the untruths he told himself about his master, that this was a man who was harsh and even a thief, someone who harvested what he didn't plant. These things AREN'T true of God, of course, nor of Jesus, but they ARE what many people imagine to be true. (and too often I think this way)

Communication, for me, HAS helped over the years.  I talk to someone -- a friend, a relative, my wife, my kids.  Talking helps me put things in perspective. I attempt should to get the real facts of a situation. Find out what is and isn't true. Leadership Guru Peter Drucker says that "once the facts are clear, the decisions jump out at you."

Finally, I make a plan to deal with the situation, whatever it is. See what can be done to improve a problem -- rather than let it fester.  As a believer, however -- as a servant of the great Master -- I have something even greater than just talking it over with others or making a to-do list as ways to conquer worry. I have a loving Savior who wants to see me do well, to succeed with whatever He's given me to do. His presence, that hope, helps me conquer toxic worry in the here and now -- and in the weeks and months to come.  I have found that most things are not worth losing stomach lining over. Taking Jesus literally -  until the next day -  not worry about that...lot's of stuff to worry about today -I'm at least banking on it.