Reduce stress. Put all problems into 1 of 4 groups
Around us each day in every venue, there are problems. Problems at work, at home, in our government, etc. If you think to hard about them all, you will gets seriously stressed out. Effectively managing those problems must first come by deciding which problems you are going to expend life energy to help solve. I have figured out that there are only 4 groupings of problems, all nested. Let us pick my work for example.
Group 1:All the problems at work.
Lots of problems, staffing issues, budgetary issues, policy problems, this is all of them.
Group 2:All the problems at work that I care about.
Ones that effect me in my day to day operations. I wish these would get fixed.
Group 3:All the problems at work that I care about and I am willing to spend life energy on.
A smaller group, for sure. I am passionate about these and am willing to help to fix it. Sure I might be willing to talk to people and help them with the issue, but if I think my actions will not be implemented or undone, it is a waste of my time and energy.
Group 4:All the problems at work that I care about, am willing to work on, and that I truly believe my efforts will help solve the problem.
An even smaller group. Basically, it is those problems that I know my efforts will be fruitful, and not quashed by something or someone else.
Now comes the tough part, ignoring groups 1-3. That group 3 is very tempting, especially for a teacher/problem solver like me. Before you get involved or start thinking about any problem you see, you have to figure out which group it lies in. If it does not fall in group 4, let it go. Don’t let it get you down, because nothing you do will help.
You will find your stress level going down as you spend your energy working on those group 4 projects which hopefully get fixed, cheering you up.
If you have no problems in group 4, you are stress free, if you have the right attitude.
This goes for any level of community, work, home, local civic groups, state and federal politics, anything. Try it, you might find yourself much happier. Let me know if it works for you.
June 21st, 2006 at 10:21 am
Thank you for giving voice to my new - found philosophy. As difficult as it has been for this hard head , challenge-driven girl to admit, even knowing everything, or most of everything, has not made it necessary or wise to respond as such. Chronic health problems have taught me not to try to be so tough. We are still all just animals and should remember that eating, drinking enough liquids, care and maintainence of ourselves is a huge chore not to be taken lightly. Our own Country’s response to the Iraqi’s should be a good enough analogy of why ‘do-gooders’ should all be done away with . . . before we all kill each other with ‘ kindness ‘.