Stress Is An Optional Extra

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I am in the middle of moving home. Apparently it is supposed to be one of the most stressful things somebody can do outside of getting divorced or dying neither of which I plan to do any time soon.

The weird thing is though I don’t feel in the least bit stressed. I’d prefer it if it wasn’t quite so hot but other than that it doesn’t seem at all stressful just a load of lugging some heavy and some not so heavy boxes around.

I had no problems when I moved from the UK to the US either, or when I set up a new business over here. I did get a tiny bit stressed trying to deal with the bureaucracy of US Government bodies such as Immigration and Social Security but other than that things have gone great.

I am not telling you this to say ‘hey look at me, aren’t I amazing?’ I am telling you to prove that events don’t cause stress it is our interpretation of events and what we tell ourselves that does. Many people cling on to their right to get stressed almost as if it were part of the US Constitution and they’re not going to let anybody take that right away. If you love the feeling of tense muscles, headaches, irritability, insomnia etc and you have a body that thinks cortisol is the nectar of the gods then go ahead knock yourself out. Insist on believing that any up and coming events are going to end in disaster and feel those familiar tense feelings return right on cue.

Alternatively, you could imagine things going smoothly plan properly and trust in the knowledge that with or without stress you will get the job done so you may as well take the latter option.