-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Everyone who hasn’t felt any stress this past week, please raise your hand. To avoid stress you would first have to totally avoid all news sources. We have had a virtual smorgasbord of hate and violence both nationally and internationally this week. Take your pick.
For others, like Meryl Baer, it can lead to thoughts about our next election: Politics and the Presidency is everywhere these days. Speculation has already begun about who the 2020 candidates might be. Will the current President be the standard bearer? If not, who will be the Republican nominee? What about the Democrats? Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting throws in her two cents on the topic in Countdown to the 2020 Presidential election. 
Adventures of the NEW Old Farts 
I have to disagree. Stress isn’t something you experience passively. Stress is a reaction to a stimuli of some kind and is strictly internal to your mind and body. You deal with stress by training your body and mind on how to react to negative events.
We all experience negative events. My wife has had three different cancers including Stage IV cervical. As a school bus driver, she had to be resuscitated after two pickup trucks hit her bus at high speed. Discussions of illness and death don’t bother her. She can talk about them very matter-of-factly. In fact very few things bother her now — the major exception being people who waste her time and people who are dishonest. Time and truth are precious to her.
Arguably, dealing with stress is about getting one’s priorities straight.
About Charlottesville: it’s no secret that white trash exists. These are often people who made unfortunate choices about school and careers, and the economy is leaving them behind. They want to blame someone for their mistakes, and they wanted Trump to make it all better — and that’s not going to happen. Unless they make a commitment to learning, they’re going to have rough lives and die early — the life expectancy for the poor in the US is shrinking, and most of the poor are these white folk.
LikeLike
I relate best to your wife in this regard. With two traumatic brain injuries and a recent run-in with potential lung cancer, I talk matter-of-factly about death. I feel time and truth are precious, and I have my priorities in order…
LikeLike
Like you, I prefer avoidance but often that’s not the best path. I had surgery on Friday and because of meds, I slept through much of the Charlottesville hatred. It was like waking to the worst sort of nightmare. The true sort.
LikeLike
Thanks for coming by Grace. One thing I know for sure, judging someone you know nothing about is not the way to peace in this world… “Don’t confront me with my failures. I have not forgotten them.” – Jackson Brown
LikeLike