Living with Stress

Summary

The article discusses the paradoxical relationship between stress and meaning, suggesting that individuals often accept stress as a necessary cost for living a life aligned with their values and aspirations.

Abstract

The article "The Reflective Eclectic: Living with Stress" delves into the counterintuitive choice some people make to embrace stress for the sake of values they hold dear. It contrasts those who avoid stress at the expense of a shrinking life with those who accept stress as part of pursuing challenging and meaningful endeavors. The author, Keith R Wilson, argues that stress is an inevitable byproduct of striving for what is important and that people often endure it for the sake of doing something significant. The article suggests that therapy may not always be about eliminating stress but rather about learning to manage it while continuing to engage in difficult, yet meaningful, activities.

Opinions

The author believes that avoiding stress to the point of inaction leads to a diminished life and eventual despair.
People who engage in challenging tasks accept stress as a part of their journey towards achieving their goals.
The stress experienced by individuals who pursue difficult but meaningful activities is justified by the importance of their endeavors.
There is an acknowledgment that some individuals may seek therapy for stress relief but are unwilling to abandon their meaningful yet stressful pursuits.
The author implies that a certain level of stress is acceptable if it results from activities that give life purpose and significance.

Living with Stress

And why you should try it

Image from Pxhere

You might not think you would choose to have stress, but many people do, for good reasons and bad. For many, very many, stress is an acceptable price they pay for values they hold dear.

I’ve known people who are so dead set against having stress that they don’t try anything new because it’ll make them nervous, they don’t go anywhere because people might look at them funny; they continue smoking cigarettes because they’ll feel like crap if they quit; or they don’t get attached to anything because, when they lose it, they’ll grieve. For a while, sometimes a long while, they are gloriously stress-free. It looks as though they’re doing well. They don’t give their families any trouble. They are not spending their days in misery.

The problem is that their lives are getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller. The day will come when they see the price they paid to be stress-free and, guess what? They’ll fall into despair. They will have dug themselves a bunker so deep, they can’t get out of it.

Contrast that to the person who works so hard at his job that he drives himself into the ground, not eating, not sleeping, not even caring how he feels as long as he meets his objectives. He doesn’t want to destroy his health, but he accepts it because he’s doing something important. Compare it to the wife who sticks with an alcoholic, abusive husband, determined to bring him around to fulfil the promise she sees in him. She may prefer not to be hurt, but she will accept being hurt if it means that she is good. Or look at the performer who endures stage fright before each show. It’s no fun puking up your guts in the dressing room, but the applause makes it worth it.

There are people, plenty of people, who do hard things. When you do hard things, you get stress, because there’s only so much a person can take. It’s the cost of doing what is difficult, if not impossible.

Those people might come to see a therapist, too; hoping to alleviate their stress. But their stress isn’t going anywhere because they won’t do what they have to do to get rid of it: quit trying to do what is difficult. They won’t quit doing what’s difficult because only the difficult really matters. This is how they make their lives mean something.

When they put it that way, I don’t blame them.

The moral of the story is that you can put up with anything, even stress, as long as it’s meaningful. If you are putting up with stress, it had better be.