Except for a Trappist monk or Carmelite nun, I live probably the most stress-free life in America...seriously. It's a state I've cultivated and nurtured for the last 14 years, since life in the corporate world pushed my blood pressure up to Himalayan levels, and it was either reduce the stress or call the Garden Of Memories for their next available plot.
I'm certainly not in the advice business...since I refuse to take it from anyone else, I'm in no position to give it. I am, however, going to list a few things that I think have qualified me to write the opening sentence of this posting. Like anything else worthwhile in life, stress reduction takes some thought, planning and a few conscious decisions... plus time to actually make these changes happen. Some of them may work for you -- others you may think are completely nuts and, by association, that I'm a complete nutcase. I may be... but I'm a non-stressed-out nutcase. So there.
Job stress? I quit my job and started a profitable home business. It's possible... millions are doing it and more join the ranks every day. In one sweet fell swoop I eliminated "the boss" by becoming one. I work my own hours, the money I bring in is MY money, not some corporation's, my jammies are my work clothes and my 24-foot commute doesn't require a drop of $3.50/gallon gas. There are a few downsides, but stress isn't one of them. For me, the benefits have been incredible.
Financial stress? I've learned to live to my needs, not my wants. This doesn't mean I don't dally on ebay and Amazon, but reducing my consumption of "stuff" and slipping down a rung or two on the lifestyle ladder have been good in more ways than financially. This was also a package deal for me -- cutting back on buying also means cutting back on shopping -- which is a HUGE stressor for me. I know it's recreational and even a necessity for a lot of women, but I'm not one of 'em.
Noise stress. After eliminating from my life the unethical assholes I worked for, this was the second most important stressor, but one of the hardest to achieve. This may not apply to anyone else, but I suspect I'm not the only one whom noise makes crazy...if you don't agree, maybe you just don't realize its impact. Noise is EVERYWHERE. I'm convinced that our hunter/gatherer brains are not hardwired for all the input we receive every single minute of the day, unless we consciously control it. I DVR every single thing I watch on TV - no exception. And before God wrought the DVR, I VCR'd everything, primarily to skip the horrendous burden of commercials. Remember the good old days when a commercial break meant one or two ads, just time enough to grab a Hostess cupcake from the kitchen? Now there can be up to 10 ads during each break, and a break every 3 minutes, each with its own mind-numbing music/graphics/narration/video. I miss it all -- and it only delays my (questionable) viewing pleasure for 15 minutes, or so. Now if I could just figure out how to block out the canned music in every single store, restaurant and elevator in the world.
People stress. Nancy Reagan had this one right.. I just say NO. It wasn't hard to learn and I didn't even need to practice it in front of a mirror. N. O. No thanks. No, I'm sorry. I'd really like to, but No, I can't. This may be one of the occasions in life where a little lie is okay for the greater good. This one works for me because I'm a hard-core introvert -- extroverts may not ever be able to say no to social occasions or companionship, but I find it easy and necessary. No thanks, I already have plans that day/night/weekend/year. No. Thanks, but no. (Note: This works exceptionally well with telemarketers and other phone solicitors.)
Diet and Exercise -- yeah, you see it everywhere because it's true. Eating well and exercising regularly WORK to help reduce stress. I'm not even tempted by fast food restaurants, and I have so much guilt about eating other junk food that it's just not worth it. I'm not an exercise freak, but I do manage to walk 2-3 miles a day at least five times a week. You just can't beat those little endolphins.
Sleeping...is a problem for many of us, me included, but sleeplessness contributes to daily stress. You certainly don't want to be around cranky me after a bad night. Hypnosis has helped, as do prescription medications. I'm still up a couple of hours at night, but since this has been going on since 1984 I think it just might be chronic. Thank you, God, for pharmaceuticals.
Stress about national/world current events. This is a toughie. I want to stay informed, but "being informed" also means I must read and watch all of the horrific and sleazy occurrences of our daily lives. So, I turn off the news about every three weeks and leave it off for awhile -- catching only headlines online. My political activism and idealism years are behind me, and all that evil and scary stuff does get to me. I call this my ostrich plan -- and while it may be foolish and socially irresponsible, it does reduce my stress. This is the opposite of apathy -- I really care too much about issues and events, but I'm not convinced that worrying about things I can't influence or change does any good, anyway. For those things I can't ignore, I have this blog. (It's free and easy therapy.)
Well, that leaves holiday stress. This holly-jolly season must be near the top of the list of stress-inducers since I've already seen three online articles addressing this problem, and it's not even December yet. Those articles all talked about the things I've already managed above -- with just a few exceptions. My lights get tangled like everyone else's, and all the fattening holiday food is a constant temptation. I get really tired of all the BAD Christmas music that saturates the atmosphere everywhere I go. (Where is it written that every third-rate celebrity must produce an album of Christmas songs? I don't remember seeing "Trigger Taps Out Holiday Melodies" when I was a kid.)
I guess, as in many other aspects of life, the blessed perspective of age itself is a stress-reducer... priorities are clearer, and fewer responsibilities make the holidays lighter. This is one of those times when I wouldn't be 30 again for anything, with all the inherent stress those young-family years include. It's nice now to be "Grandma" and one generation removed from Santa's stand-in.
Now if someone would only invent a non-veggie appetizer with no calories and no fat grams that tasted like, I don't know....yummy food.
Showing posts with label introvert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label introvert. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
If It's Tuesday In Europe, My Feet Hurt
This time last year I was frantically making lists and checking them 37 times, spending my days on ricksteves.com for packing tips, confirming and reconfirming foreign reservations, trying to remember high school and college French, sweating my way through exchanging money and stashing it discreetly in my little waist pack, and hoping transportation security in three countries wouldn't question my excessively large supply of Xanax.... (flying, especially over the Atlantic for eight hours, scares the crap outta me).
This time this year I'm serenely sitting at my computer, happily viewing the 338 pictures I took during that trip to Europe (see my favorites to your right) and vowing never to leave my house again with passport in hand.
On one hand it was a glorious sightseeing vacation, my first in 13 years of self-employment.
On the other hand, it was exactly the wrong trip for this type of comfort-loving, cranky, I-don't-want-to-leave-my-cocoon, curmudgeonly introvert.
In Paris I met up with a long-time friend who is a seasoned traveler, very familiar with many areas of the world and at home everywhere. He's very savvy about money and thus very thrifty, little concerned with gourmet food, amenities or physical comfort while traveling. He's also a certified extrovert.
While I can't speak for all introverts, I suspect that there's a profound difference in the way introverts and extroverts experience the world.
My friend can scan a map or guidebook in 30 seconds, decide in another 20 seconds exactly what he wants to see, find the best route and the best mode of transportation to get there (and not care if he has to run for a train or chase down a taxi), see the place in a flash, drinking everything in with one big gulp, including all historical facts and arcane tidbits....then be ready to move on to the next marvel.
I, on the other hand, need to mull over each possible site for weeks, research its history, plan every move and account for every eventuality, know for sure what the entire day, including the weather, will be like, have at least two fallback plans at the ready, and always arrive at the train station at least a half hour early. I also need to let the history and atmosphere of the site gather around me, to experience it through osmosis and imagination, silence and solitude and see the finer details through the lens of my camera. I'll move on to the next attraction tomorrow... or next week, long after this one has been absorbed.
It's been my experience that extroverts can truly live in the moment -- such a trendy thing to do these days. We poor introverts need to absorb the nuances over time, to meld the reality with expectation and imagination, and only in reflection, association and memory will the experience become real to us, part of us.
It was one of those "if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium" kinds of trips -- so much to see, a finite time to see it, and no time in between to rest or even to recover from serious jet lag. I can't even blame my friend for all of this -- it was I who set the sightseeing schedule, not realizing at the time I was sabotaging my own experience.
The plan was: a week in France, a week in England, hitting some high points that each of us had seen before and wanted to share with one another, and to see some new things together that had piqued our interest. A leisurely drive through the Loire valley, not to visit the chateaux but a pilgrimage of sorts to the abbey where lie the tombstones of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. (OK, maybe we were really searching for Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn of "The Lion In Winter," but whatever.) Throw in Paris, Chartres, Fleury Abbey, Orleans, London, Windsor and York in 14 short days, and you get the idea. Thank God we decided there wasn't quite enough time for a side trip to Haarlem or Amsterdam!
About three-quarters of the way through the trip, I'm afraid my response to almost everything was, "If it's Tuesday, shut up, leave me alone and let me sleep! NO, I will not walk another two miles to dinner because my feet are killing me now!"
In the end we saw everything we planned, and more, and I arrived home completely exhausted, lollygagging in bed for (seriously) two days before venturing out even for the mail. Transatlantic travel with all the post-911 security is not for the weak, the lame or the getting older. Those little airline seats aren't for the ample of ass, either. Although I had an hour between flights in Dallas on the last leg of the journey, I literally had to run for the gateway because of security delays and changes in gates. (WHY do they do that?)
It's taken 11-1/2 months for me to be able to look back upon that trip with fondness and a bit of nostalgia. It's also taken nearly a year for my introverted brain to assimilate the wonder of everything we saw and experienced, to filter the reality of it through my imagination and be able to realize the amazing history we touched upon. It's quite overwhelming to stand in a cathedral that has stood for a thousand years or longer, to walk on a 4th century Roman floor, and to tour an 11th century kitchen endowed by the most powerful woman of medieval France. I wish, like my friend, I had been able to internalize and feel all this at the time, but only time has been able to impart that to me.
If I'm ever brave enough to venture forth again to Europe, it will be for a much longer time and with far fewer goals. It will be with the knowledge that to appreciate history, I have to become a part of it, even if that's only in my imagination.
Next time, if it's Tuesday, it will be France....and the next Tuesday still France...and the next, and the next, and the next.
Well, maybe one quick side trip to The Netherlands....
This time this year I'm serenely sitting at my computer, happily viewing the 338 pictures I took during that trip to Europe (see my favorites to your right) and vowing never to leave my house again with passport in hand.
On one hand it was a glorious sightseeing vacation, my first in 13 years of self-employment.
On the other hand, it was exactly the wrong trip for this type of comfort-loving, cranky, I-don't-want-to-leave-my-cocoon, curmudgeonly introvert.
In Paris I met up with a long-time friend who is a seasoned traveler, very familiar with many areas of the world and at home everywhere. He's very savvy about money and thus very thrifty, little concerned with gourmet food, amenities or physical comfort while traveling. He's also a certified extrovert.
While I can't speak for all introverts, I suspect that there's a profound difference in the way introverts and extroverts experience the world.
My friend can scan a map or guidebook in 30 seconds, decide in another 20 seconds exactly what he wants to see, find the best route and the best mode of transportation to get there (and not care if he has to run for a train or chase down a taxi), see the place in a flash, drinking everything in with one big gulp, including all historical facts and arcane tidbits....then be ready to move on to the next marvel.
I, on the other hand, need to mull over each possible site for weeks, research its history, plan every move and account for every eventuality, know for sure what the entire day, including the weather, will be like, have at least two fallback plans at the ready, and always arrive at the train station at least a half hour early. I also need to let the history and atmosphere of the site gather around me, to experience it through osmosis and imagination, silence and solitude and see the finer details through the lens of my camera. I'll move on to the next attraction tomorrow... or next week, long after this one has been absorbed.
It's been my experience that extroverts can truly live in the moment -- such a trendy thing to do these days. We poor introverts need to absorb the nuances over time, to meld the reality with expectation and imagination, and only in reflection, association and memory will the experience become real to us, part of us.
It was one of those "if it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium" kinds of trips -- so much to see, a finite time to see it, and no time in between to rest or even to recover from serious jet lag. I can't even blame my friend for all of this -- it was I who set the sightseeing schedule, not realizing at the time I was sabotaging my own experience.
The plan was: a week in France, a week in England, hitting some high points that each of us had seen before and wanted to share with one another, and to see some new things together that had piqued our interest. A leisurely drive through the Loire valley, not to visit the chateaux but a pilgrimage of sorts to the abbey where lie the tombstones of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. (OK, maybe we were really searching for Peter O'Toole and Katherine Hepburn of "The Lion In Winter," but whatever.) Throw in Paris, Chartres, Fleury Abbey, Orleans, London, Windsor and York in 14 short days, and you get the idea. Thank God we decided there wasn't quite enough time for a side trip to Haarlem or Amsterdam!
About three-quarters of the way through the trip, I'm afraid my response to almost everything was, "If it's Tuesday, shut up, leave me alone and let me sleep! NO, I will not walk another two miles to dinner because my feet are killing me now!"
In the end we saw everything we planned, and more, and I arrived home completely exhausted, lollygagging in bed for (seriously) two days before venturing out even for the mail. Transatlantic travel with all the post-911 security is not for the weak, the lame or the getting older. Those little airline seats aren't for the ample of ass, either. Although I had an hour between flights in Dallas on the last leg of the journey, I literally had to run for the gateway because of security delays and changes in gates. (WHY do they do that?)
It's taken 11-1/2 months for me to be able to look back upon that trip with fondness and a bit of nostalgia. It's also taken nearly a year for my introverted brain to assimilate the wonder of everything we saw and experienced, to filter the reality of it through my imagination and be able to realize the amazing history we touched upon. It's quite overwhelming to stand in a cathedral that has stood for a thousand years or longer, to walk on a 4th century Roman floor, and to tour an 11th century kitchen endowed by the most powerful woman of medieval France. I wish, like my friend, I had been able to internalize and feel all this at the time, but only time has been able to impart that to me.
If I'm ever brave enough to venture forth again to Europe, it will be for a much longer time and with far fewer goals. It will be with the knowledge that to appreciate history, I have to become a part of it, even if that's only in my imagination.
Next time, if it's Tuesday, it will be France....and the next Tuesday still France...and the next, and the next, and the next.
Well, maybe one quick side trip to The Netherlands....
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