In this training, it seems like no matter what I have accomplished or how few the commitments I made, there will always be something to stress about. Whether it’s exams, papers, diab clinics, conferences, reports, relationships and bills (light and water, phone line, DSL, TV cable or condominium association fees), something will always be looming around my head. And as these things continue to hover, stress arises to meet them, there to meet the challenge, but often putting myself in overdrive and pushing my body into a state of anxiety.
Just like today. I started my Ash Wednesday going to mass and became overwhelmed by the priest’s sermon of the Holy Gospel. When I am about to get to practice being a good Christian, by encouraging people to go to mass, it turns out to be a bad idea. Sometimes it'll be better to just be still so you will not be thought of wrongly. Or else, I worry. Just like I worry on my patient who just had a re-stroke while waiting for her clearance to discharge. And as I sit on this nurse station, unable to go home to even take a quick bath (and surely the ride home is more stressful), with an insulin drip and the hourly CBG monitoring at hand, in a semi-comatose patient, I’ll always be at my toes or I might push my patient towards her mortality.
See, if you’re under stress, not only does your mind worry constantly, but your body reacts as well. I battle over headaches, muscle tension, insomnia and occasional acne, which make myself pretty stressed out most highly. Spa salons will make lots of money over girls like me. I admit, these days, its a bit expensive to have a sound mind and a sound body.
I have wanted to seize the day over wanting to accomplish all things at the same time in a short while before the world would come crashing down. The magnitude made me stop and think, will these things that occupy my worried mind matter a year from now? No, it’s actually not even important. I guess, I just have to figure out what’s worth my mental energy and focus on that.
So I always tell myself to keep my cool, and take one step at a time. What I found to be huge unmanageable problems are really just a series of smaller, manageable task. But this I learned anyway, certain things are out of my reach, I can’t control it, and some things can’t change. There’s no point in worrying or stressing about it. It might not be worth stressing over.
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