There seems to be a lot of stress in the world today and lot of people claiming to be “stressed out.”  But how do we really know what to be stressed about?  “Duh!  War, the economy, job loss, sickness, traffic jams,” you might reply thinking I am a complete idiot to even ask such a question.  Of course, those are real life situations which are causing a lot of us a lot of pain.  But can we really be so sure that all of these situations will ultimately turn out to be bad?  If we were really able see “negative” personal and world events in the grand scheme of things, would any of them actually be the catalysts that lead to new growth, creativity, and the positive changes that our world desperately needs?

“But we can all agree that job loss is a terrible thing!”  I don’t wish it upon anyone to lose a job they wish to keep, but is job loss necessarily bad?  For some people, it is just the push they needed to get them to start the business they had always wanted to start.  They hadn’t taken the risk earlier, because they couldn’t justify leaving their lucrative  job.

“Surely you’ll allow me to be stressed out about illness!”  There are even people out there with serious illnesses who say it was the best thing that ever happened to them, because it transformed their life.  It helped them to get their priorities straight, heal relationships, and live life more purposely.

“What about traffic jams? They stink!”  Do they? How about the person who got stuck in a traffic jam and missed his airplane flight which crashed?  I’ll bet he has a whole new vision of traffic jams.

The point is that stress or lack of stress has a lot to do with judging a situation as “good” or “bad,” and we can’t say for certain that a “negative” life event is not really a blessing in disguise.  If we can refrain from automatically judging a life event as bad, we can avoid a lot of stress.  And if we can find a reason to be grateful or find the gift in the situation, we can help ourselves to handle seemingly tough times with greater ease.