A killer lie

Sir, you are extremely stressed out!

Of course I am! It’s expected of me!

Haven’t you heard what media and business have been telling us all these years?…. stress is everywhere, at work, at home, at school.

It’s part of life, no successful executive can call himself a success if he doesn’t carry the marks of stress! If I don’t talk about how stressed I am, people will think I’m not doing anything important.

If I’m not stressed, they’ll think my life is easy and I don’t have enough sacrifices for the idols of management. How will I ever be worthy of promotion if stress is non existent in my life?

If I’m not a stressed housewife, it wouldn’t be fair to my husband who’s out there slaving away, my friends would think I’m a lady of leisure and just dependent on my husband.

I have to remind my children that all this stress is killing me so they can appreciate me more and so they can be better kids.

Important people have stress for breakfast!

* * *

Believe it or not, just writing that intro was stressful. But hopefully it makes you realize how all of us have been living a lie as if it were gospel truth.

While we all "talk" about how bad stress can be and that we should get rid of it in our lives, we actually decorate our dialogue with "stress". We wear it in our psyche like medals or stroke it like war wounds as if to remind ourselves what we’ve had to go through in order to become the successful mess that we now are. It’s a killer lie.

Stress is real, but it is man-made. Stress happens because we make it happen. Stress is nothing more than conflict of perception and/or belief. It is order versus disorder.

Ever since God created mankind, He gave us the right of "choice", but we never really gave "choice" enough importance. We don’t study the concept in school intensely. We don’t do significant exercise that create people who actively think out their choices. Our choices are not holistic but individualistic.

Strange that we give more importance to learning math or driving than to raising kids who know how to make informed, sensible and sensitive choices. Is it any wonder we walk on planet selfishness?

So now we know what stress is. Why do you fertilize it? Yes, how come we pump it up.

How often do we hear those words and actually pay attention? I mean the kind of paying attention that leads us to observing, analyzing, understanding and resolving this problem about being stressed? Probably never unless of course a nurse or doctor tells you your blood pressure reading could get you arrested at the NLEX.

The only time people actually stop to think about it is when their chest muscle, their brain or their heart decides to cut off circulation just to get their attention.

I think that’s the reason why many of my friends who are mid-lifers seem to have second thoughts when we invite them to visit. They don’t like to confront such matters specially on their own.

It never occurred to me that my wife and I actually built a house that challenges people psychologically and physiologically.

To begin with, you have to push open a two meter door made of wood and steel. It also serves as the gate. This requires upper body strength, specially if no one’s there to open or close it after you.

I’ve heard comments such as "wimp", "old man" or "be careful, you might hurt yourself" as a few extremely out of shape folks struggle with the gate.

Next is the James Bond bridge between the driveway and the stairway going up into the house. You need to "cross" a glass landing. It’s actually four pieces of three quarters inch glass plates over the salt water tank with four sharks, a couple of eels and the surviving Lapu-lapus.

I always thought it was a great design concept. Little did I realize that it would trigger all sorts of phobias that friends never talked about. Phobia for water, phobia for glass, phobia for crossing bridges, gang planks, phobia for sharks, phobia for fish and eels.

Of course I don’t show them how hilariously silly they look trying not to step on the glass as they cross over. It’s like watching Mission Impossible where they avoid the laser beams.

Telling them how funny they look could lead to "phobius beltramus" as in avoid the Beltran house! If the bridge doesn’t get you the sharks will!

If you manage your phobias well, the next test is the stainless steel spiral staircase. Even avid golfers have been known to fail to rise to the occasion once they huff and puff into the living room. I immediately harass them to see their doctor the next day.

Our bodies have a clear way of telling us we are out of shape. It punishes us, visually and physically. If you can’t make the sensible choice of being healthy, then your mind has just decided to fight with your body. That’s asking for stress.

Writer George Orwell said: "At age fifty, every man has the face he deserves: If you’re fat and ugly, chances are you did it to yourself. If you’re in pain, you waited too long to help yourself."

Going back to the issue of stress, it seems we have backed ourselves into a corner on this one. There was a time when being tired was not a good thing. "If you’re tired go to bed and get some rest" that’s what all our parents told us, remember?

If you felt a bit under the weather, you stayed home, read a book, drank tea, or slept. You did not work from the house, you did not take phone calls unless urgent.

And when the doctor said rest, you don’t attempt to climb coconut trees out of boredom. Yes, I have indulged in such stupid activity when I was suppose to be resting. Too much testosterone and too little brains.

So where do we go with the debate? Here’s my story:

So the therapist tells me I’m stressed. But how can I be? I don’t keep an 8 hour job, I have marital bliss, I have the most beautiful daughter in the world, I’m more than happy being with God, cash will come, cash will go. And the BIR only stresses me out once a year.

Oh!! I forgot the radio I always have to hit to make it work, that’s been annoying me for a year. Then there are the windows that still don’t have curtains after five years. I really have to do something about the minor leak in my car’s exhaust. The water heater in the farm still needs to be replaced, and I really have to ….. so on and so forth.

A sack of coins can amount to a wallet full of cash. And a life full of little imperfections and annoyance can lead to one stressful situation.

I threw out the transistor. My wife and daughter bought me a boom box with a remote. My wife realized five years was enough patience so I went out and bought blinds. Now my interior design friends are stressed. Not me.

I can now have breakfast and not feel like a goldfish with people looking in. I fixed, repaired, and if not, I replaced. But I stopped living with the situation. I’m talking about environment not relationships, clear?!

It is possible to be happy, but in order to do so, one must choose to prioritize happiness.