> After a number of years, I think I have cracked the code: Stress is the feeling one gets when there is so much to do that it can't be done without cheating. For most people, cheating is unpleasant. In order to get the courage to cheat, we need another unpleasant feeling to whip us into it. And that feeling is called stress.
In my experience overloaded people are not stressed because of "cheating". Either the author in their mind is redefining cheating, stress, or linking the two incorrectly.
Stress is indeed a state of worry or mental tension because of a difficult situation. Put in another way, it is biological response to a perceived threat.
I think stress for people with too many things to do are from all kinds of things (e.g., time pressure, perfectionism, lack of control, fear of failure, interpersonal conflicts, lack of support).
A unique, insightful and useful perspective about stress. It's not very long and well worth reading, but here is the core argument:
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Stress is the feeling one gets when there is so much to do that it can't be done without cheating. For most people, cheating is unpleasant. In order to get the courage to cheat, we need another unpleasant feeling to whip us into it. And that feeling is called stress.
Stress is what we experience when we have too many deadlines to meet too soon. We know that something must go. But we don't know what. So the feeling of stress becomes a perpetual spur to cheat with small things. Maybe work can't be sacrificed. But cooking can. So stressed people eat sandwiches and drink Coke although they know they will feel bad from it in the long term. They avoid double-checking details they know they should be double-checking and hope to get away with it. They know they should be friendly to people around them, but they cheat with that too, because they know they will get away with it, for a while at least.
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having realized that stress is essentially about cheating, I had the key to stop feeling stressed in everyday life: Only set ridiculously realistic and flexible goals for myself. Decide exactly what I want to do with the time and energy I have and do that and nothing else.
Humans in general want to do more than they are able to do. That is only natural. The opposite, wanting to do less than one is technically capable of doing is called depression. That is not a nice feeling. So the first step towards not being stressed is accepting that if ambitions are higher than ability, that is just a sign of mental health.
Step 2 is to choose consciously among those ambitions. This is hard, because it requires giving up on parts of one's identity. I want to be a person who works hard, keeps physically in shape, spends time with my children, reads books, writes about what I read, maintains a home with a certain standard of maintenance and cleanliness, has many children, wears clothes that are not visibly worn out… I want all that. And I can't achieve all that. I have to choose.
The choice can be made two ways:
1. Consciously and calmly making priorities: What is important and what is less important? What needs to be done right now and what can be saved for later? What should I simply skip?
2. Unconsciously and chaotically. Try to do everything that would be nice to do, and cheat constantly in the process.
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In my experience overloaded people are not stressed because of "cheating". Either the author in their mind is redefining cheating, stress, or linking the two incorrectly.
Stress is indeed a state of worry or mental tension because of a difficult situation. Put in another way, it is biological response to a perceived threat.
I think stress for people with too many things to do are from all kinds of things (e.g., time pressure, perfectionism, lack of control, fear of failure, interpersonal conflicts, lack of support).