Not many people know that at the moderate level, stress is advantageous. It is also a motivator of our action, the backbone of a committed behavior as well as a reliable source of encouragement.
But, beyond this level, stress becomes dangerously consequential and irretrievably problematic.
Stress forces the victim to experience a form of detour which endangers the achievement of noble goals. A proverb in Africa days that "it was fire (stress) that forced crayfish to bend"
Many mortals have lost focus, sold out, compromised and threw in their towels because of intense power of stress. Others have become shadows of themselves and their live dreams because they couldn't manage the stresses in their lives.
More than experiencing distraction or a detour, the loss of meaning of life and the ultimate lack of fulfilment which results from inability to handle stress is the baneful portion of many individuals.
In reality, the pursuit of success in any life endeavor is normally stressful. Both attainment and maintenance of success will test the management skill of the successful. Several are those individuals who stumble and fall on the roadside when they fail to adjust to the stressful demands of the game. Ironically, a significant proportion of those who attain success are unable to manage it because of the high degree of stress which is associated with attaining success.
Examples abound where erstwhile Millionaires died bankrupt, high celebrities committed suicide, very popular politicians died ignoble death.
Stress can disrupt some brain activities such as memory, (can cause loss of memory) right judgement (leading people to make wrong judgement because of false perception) and creative imagination (hinders creative thinking)
Although, few individuals could be at their best when they are under intense pressure. Yet this should not be allowed to go on for a long time because a combination of chronic and prolonged stress will obviously create adverse effects.
Chronic stress does a lot of damage to human relationships. Basically, this stems from the fact that stress negatively affect the psychology of the individual. Set in motion the mood of fight or flight most people may be far away from being humane, noble or virtuous.
Acting from the viewpoint of false perception, impaired judgement and threatened destiny, many mortals may likely tend towards irrationality than rationality. In this way therefore, business and financial relationships suffer, marital intimacy marred, spiritual decorum is forsaken and all one used to hold as sacred may become desecrated.
In the context of the above realities, we should see the dire need to be kind to people we meet on the way because everyone is faced with one form of stress or the other. Particularly, stress has affected many homes and marriages. Many couples, being unable to handle the stresses directly, results to use of defensive mechanism of displaced aggression thereby increasing the sore point in their marriages.
Please endeavour not be caught in this avoidable web.
From the desk of Udu Ben, an advocate of stress-free life
