Stress

 I have been under varying levels of stress for about two months. The levels are going down as each of my issues resolve. I made the bed and it took me far too long to pull myself out. Mainly because asking for help and then relying on others to help is very hard for me. Family and friends have sent healing vibes my way, as well as, help by sending money which was given from the heart. I only asked my son and daughter for monetary help and my daughter was the only one who has come through. My son has said nothing including, no we can't help. Ghosting me for something I am uncertain I did. But I am not going to dwell any longer on that.

Once relief comes it is hard to stand down the worry/stress level. It is agencies who are helping me currently and I can't thank them enough for the help and advice. It is of course the people in the agencies who do the helping and I haven't talked to one person who has been negative. I'm not sure I could keep up the empathy level each day when I hear about the crisis people are going through. From my relatively temporary crisis to those who pull out of whatever crisis they are in, even with the help of people who seem to actually care. I only qualify that because if people feel better from what the agency people say or do it really doesn't matter if everyone of them actually cares. Kindness is something that we all have to be reminded about in our current world. I have experienced a lot of kindness over the last few months and I can't express my thanks enough to all who have helped me. Even people I have never met in person sent support through the cute emojis and a few words. And for someone who prefers the company of her fur babies to actual people, those little things actually help. 

So stress is hard to slough off and I will probably never slough every vestige off and that's ok. I can hopefully use that to find my way and my happiness. Unlike many memes lately happiness all of the time is not a good thing, being happy all of the time can lead to not doing what you enjoy. Riches do not mean happiness, having it all does not lead to lasting love. What am I rambling on about here? I believe that having what you need, not what want is the root to personal happiness. If you have seen the film Legion with Paul Bettany he has a line where he tells Gabriel that Gabriel gives what god wants and he, Michael gives what, he says he, but I prefer they need. Yes, I see God as a duality. 

Needs should not be stressors, but so many times they are. How do I pay my rent? How do I feed my family? How do I get to the store when I have the money to buy groceries? Needs. We all have wants and sometimes we get them, the so-called 1% thrive on the wanting and see the wanting as needing. Wanting is not a bad thing, but pushing others aside to get to what you want is. Not getting what you want is not failure, failure has been getting a new definition of sorts lately. Failure can lead to success, probably does in most cases. I watched National Treasure last night and Gates talks about Edison and the light bulb, how Edison's discovery came from many failures. The stress that comes from failure when imposed by the person with the failure can be enlightening sometimes. Failure is seen as a bad thing in schools and business. Learning from failure is a good thing that we rarely acknowledge.

Edison and others acknowledge their failures as the way to success. Then there are others who fail and then buy their way to temporary success and then fail again and buy success again. Those are the people who give failure a bad name. The memes who tell you not to look back are doing you a disservice. You should not dwell on the past, but learn from it. The historian in me goes back to the old saying what we don't learn from the past.... I love learning. I am just not very good at teaching, though that part is still in flux for me. What did I do or not do that caused me to fail at something I enjoyed? In part, my anxiety, and the rest I don't know. I gave up trying even given the support I thought I needed. 

Stress one of those things that should be thought of as a way of enlightenment perhaps?