Reduce Stress By Being Prepared

Work-related  stress  most often is cited as the most negative stress that we experience on a regular basis, followed closely by the stress associated with unfamiliar experiences and locations.  The latter commonly is confused with fear, the former with former with job dissatisfaction.  Both have in common the element of control, or, more specifically, a lack of control. 

Job dissatisfaction occurs, however, when we our abilities are not exercised, or where the work environment itself is “toxic.”   Stress becomes involved when we are faced with challenges for which we are not prepared, or situations that have proven to be problematic in the past.  Indeed, anticipation of a stressful situation or experience creates its own stress.  Job dissatisfaction feeds that stress, but often is not stressful in itself.

The stress of unfamiliar experiences can be both positive and negative.  Equate, if you will, excitement with unfamiliar stress, and imagine those athletes that participate in extreme sports (such as helicopter skiing).  These extremely athletic individuals savour the excitement and the stress of the moment.  However, what we fail to factor into these experiences is that each of the participants have spent a great deal of time preparing for the sport, and  manage their risks well.  Certainly, there are those that do leap in, unprepared, but they are the exception, and often mask or submerge their stress by mentally blocking the risk factors.

What separates the good stress of athletic competition from the bad stress of the job, or facing the unknown?  The simple answer is “preparation.” Soldiers are trained and disciplined for many weeks before being thrust into unknown, challenging environments.  They repeat and repeat and repeat drills.  They simulate the confrontations and challenges that they will face, until they almost instinctively react to the unknown, by categorizing it with familiar rituals that they have practised.

Exam stress is a prime example of the benefit of practice and preparation.  Psychological studies have shown that learning  the material thoroughly is the best remedy to avert exam stress.  Yet, that is nothing more than preparation and practice!  A second dimension of exam stress reduction, though, is the principle of state-dependent learning.  As a parent, I used to simulate the exam room at home by setting up desks for my children, at which they studied, and insisted that they do homework in this setting, regularly.  However, I would also provide practical applications for the topics that they were learning, so that they could relate the learned material to a “real-life” experience.  This extra element provided a level of intimate understanding of the material, while the desk environment helped them to recall materials in the test environment as if they were at their desks at home.  They were prepared.

One of my great stressors was the doctor’s office, and, specifically, needles.  Such was my panic at medical exam time that I actually passed out while having my blood pressure taken, and, three times, while having a blood test.  Yet, I have had twenty-seven broken bones and severe injuries requiring medical intervention, have been involved in more than 1,600 fights, and have even eschewed having a broken wrist set and cast, because I had too much work to do!  Clearly, pain was not my problem.  It was a fear of the unknown: specifically, what might be in the needle, and what control was I relinquishing in the situation.  Ultimately, I chose to donate blood, reasoning that I had no right to be selfish, when a simple blood donation was needed by others with medical emergencies.  In other words, I shamed myself into overcoming my fear of needles.  It was my version of preparation.  Having donated blood multiple times, I not longer fear the process (but still don’t particularly care for it).

By preparing for and understanding circumstances and events, we can reduce or eliminate stress.  Lowered stress does not mean lower enjoyment, but it does allow you to more smoothly engage with situations that may otherwise prove too chaotic or disturbing.  In short, organize your chaos, and you will eliminate many of your potentially stressful experiences,.

Let’s Not Make A Big Deal Over This

Author Steve Gilbert, in an interview with Harvard Business Review (2011), claims that “when bad things happen, we weep and whine for a while and then pick ourselves up and get on with it.”  Conversely,  when even hugely significant events happen in our lives, the euphoria rarely lasts for more than a couple of months.  If that is true, then we need to refresh ourselves frequently and focus less on disappointments.

A friend of mine – a recently-married carpenter – and I were having a few drinks just before Christmas, when I asked him what he had purchased for his wife for Christmas.  His response was that he had just built her a brand-new house (true), exactly the way she wanted (also true).  Therefore, he would not have to buy her a present for several years, as the house had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  The rest of us, married for a little to a lot longer, enjoyed this joke immensely, knowing how untrue this was.

A common old wives’ tale, perpetuated mostly by men, holds that a woman places as much value on a single rose given as a gift as on a diamond ring.  This is a great philosophy for husbands and partners looking to be cheap with their gift giving, but has the odour of being substantially untrue.  Yet, if Mr. Gilbert is right, it is small, frequent pleasures that uplift us, while monumental events are forgotten quickly.

There are lessons to be taken from this analysis.  First, if we make the most of the little things in life, our feeling of wellbeing will be enhanced and sustained.  And, consequently, since good health is associated with positive emotions, we improve our health by seeking the little things in life.

Second, if we remind ourselves of past successes and pleasures, the same way a pessimist might dwell on prior negative experiences, we are more likely to sustain our pleasurable feelings.

Doing, too, is more beneficial than thinking about doing or procrastinating, as the experience has more retention power than the anticipation.  At the same time, facing problems head on avoids the stressful feelings when one habitually delays.  And, once the problems have passed, we are more able to put them behind us and move on.  That is, rise to he challenge, instead of fleeing from the threat.

Fourth, by developing the habit of mental “mini-vacations,” we are able to stimulate the feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, which, in turn, reduces stress.

Of course, reason is critical in everything, and you are urged, strongly, to not try to substitute a popcorn box ring for a quality engagement ring, or a plastic rose as a 25^th wedding anniversary gift for your loved one.  While “big deals” often are forgotten or mitigated in months, such a blunder may have greater staying power than you can imagine!

Effects of Music on Happiness

Each of us has paraphrased the William Congreve line from his play, The Mourning Bride: “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast (actually, breast).”  But what is the empirical evidence to support this statement, and, in turn, what impact does music have on our stress levels and degree of happiness, as well as our health?

A study more than a decade old, by researchers at the University of Texas at Tyler (Hubbard, 2001) states that “tones at a faster tempo were rated as happier, brighter, faster.  Similarly, higher pitch tones and ascending tones were rated as happier, brighter and faster.  So much for statistical clarification.  Some music, simply stated, is more upbeat, and evokes a more lively feeling.

But the feeling of happiness does not necessarily mean that we feel better, feel less stress or experience improved health.  Other studies do, though, confirm those effects.  The question is, does the happiness evoked from specific music experiences translate into general wellbeing?

The Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine reported (2001) that “all types of music were capable of reducing heart rates and blood pressure, and of controlling stress.  The researchers who performed the experiments believe that the beneficial effects of music are related to the patient’s ability to choose the music.  In other words, when people get to choose the music, they appear to be more relaxed.”  Again, this is intuitively obvious.  When we are in control of a situation, we are less likely to be stressed by it, and, in turn, our heart rates and blood pressure should decline.

A corollary result of this study found that music could reduce the stress associated with eye surgery.  This is less intuitive, but consistent with other studies on the correlation between music that we enjoy and a feeling of wellbeing.

Is some music more likely to affect us positively?  Again, the answer is intuitively clear: yes.  We all are aroused, soothed, excited, pleased, saddened or emboldened by specific songs, music or genres of music.  I, for instance, find blues very enjoyable and calming, when the very name suggests that I should be saddened.  On the other hand, I do not care for jazz, and feel more tense when it is played.  Electronica and New Age music relaxes me late at night, while classical music improves my concentration.  Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” and Bony M’s “Brown Girl In The Ring” evoke similar feelings, since both are associated with particularly memorable times in my life.

Some songs, for others, send shivers down the spine, or produce goose bumps.  These are not universal responses.  Researchers state that no external stimuli will automatically turn on stress (or happiness) responses, unless we choose to let it.  For many of us, though, those rresponses seem automatic.  Stress reaction always depends upon how an event interpreted or perceived.

The University of Maryland School of Medicine insists that listening to your favourite music is good for your cardiovascular system and provide a healthy effect on blood vessel function. (“Positive Emotions and the Endothelium: Does Joyful Music Improve Vascular Health?” Miller M, Beach V, Mangano C, Vogel RA. Oral Presentation. American Heart Association Scientific Sessions, 11/11/2008).

Empirical data from objective studies, along with anecdotal information from subjective reports point to a clear fact: good music means good health and good mood. So turn that rap music up loud, unless you loathe rap, sing along to your favourite opera, unless you like your neighbours, and get a happy on!  It’s good for all of us.

Reach Out And Touch Someone. It's Psychologically And Physiologically Healthy

What is the value of a good massage?  For the surgeonfish, even a fake massage will do!  Marta Soares of Portugal's ISPA University Institute recently concluded a study using surgeonfish and fake cleaner fish, that mimicked the movements of real cleaner fish, to see if the draw of the cleaners was their scouring function, or the stimulation that the nibbling action provided to the bigger surgeonfish.

It is well known that many larger fish, including massive sharks, not only allow but encourage small sucker fish to “ride along” and nibble at parasites on the scales of the big fish.  It is a symbiotic relationship, in that the small fish gain protection, while the bigger fish get a good cleaning.  But seeking out these little stimulators for the sake of a good massage seems hard to understand.

However, the Soares experiment leaves little room for doubt.  First, Soares exposed the surgeon fish to all kinds of stressors, similar to what they would experience in the wild, then they were put in a tank with the cleaner wrasse.  The surgeonfish immediately sought out the cleaners, and positioned themselves in such a way that the wrasses’ fins provided the massaging action.

So how does this extrapolate to us humans?

Psychology Today reports that, when used to treat eating disorders, massage therapy had some unexpected benefits.  As expected, it boosted dopamine and serotonin levels, resulting a calming effect.  But it also decreased the patients’ dissatisfaction with their bodies and raised their self esteem.  This is the simple and powerful value of touch, as assessed by the University of Michigan Medical School.  They showed that there is a strong correlation between being touch-deprived and having an eating disorder.

Developmental psychologist Tiffany Field, Ph.D., claims that massage, for premature babies, helps them gain weight and improve health.  She also claims that touch-deprived babies grow up to be more aggressive than those that receive tactile interaction.

Diane Zeitlin, of the New Jersey Medical School discovered that touch therapy revved up the immune system in students at exam time, who were experiencing fatigue and anxiety.

And cancer patients under the care of Pauline King and Richard Jost, of Ohio's James Cancer Hospital reported less pain and anxiety as a result of receiving massage therapy.

More than just sometimes, it seems, the power of touch is all we need to improve our attitudes and responses, our day, and our lives.  Whether human or animal, massage and tactile stimulation are essential to our emotional, and physical health.

Competition, Like Chocolate, Must Be Right Type To Be Healthy

Ask the average person to describe the ideal retreat from everyday life, and she will depict a life that is stress free and non-competitive.  However, ask that same person to endure a month of living with no stress of any sort and no challenges, and that person will describe, at the end of that period, a life of boredom.  Our perfect oasis in life, then is not a safe, comfortable, unchallenging escape from the joys and distresses that constitute our lives.

One of the most banal beverages is water.  However, try to live without it!  A quarter of the world eats potatoes as a staple part of the diet, while three quarters eat rice.  Can you think of foods with less taste?  On the other hand, foods like lemon, tomatoes, dark fruits and green vegetables have sometimes harsh, other times vigorous tastes, yet we need them, in abundance, to ensure health.  The analogy is simple: vitality springs from contrast and challenge.

In life, our staple foods for emotional wellbeing are competition and stress.  Like red wine, too much can be harmful.  Like chocolate – dark versus milk – stress and competition, to be healthy, must be the correct type.  Competition, like stress, can produce positive benefits, or erode our wellbeing.

Psychologist David Lowenstein states that “healthy competition can help a child have more energy and spirit, it can stimulate better performance.”  At the same time, unhealthy competition can destroy self-esteem and decrease incentive to achieve.  Low self-esteem is one of the significant contributors to stress, as is loss of control over a situation. 

Competition, where a party to the challenge is subjected to feelings of inferiority is likely to result in long-term effects, as well.  Consider the child who is repeatedly placed in a sports environment that emphasizes winning over personal improvement.  The result often is an insecure child.

As we move through life, competition can take nasty turns.  The movie, Mean Girls, highlighted that nastiness.  Facebook has become a forum for vindictive sniping at peers in the adolescent and teenage world, and has led to numerous suicides at the hands of victims who feel denigrated because they did not “fit in.”  That type of competition is extremely detrimental.

But competition is more than an element of sports, or social pecking order for teens.  Again, look to the office setting.  In such environments, the competition to dress “to the nines” results in a stressful focus on clothes, makeup and posturing.  On the other hand, in the rural environment, such preening would be ostracized. In the work world, the competition for jobs leads to backbiting and underhanded strategies to tear down opponents.   The stress that results destroys marriages, creates huge debt crises and encourages distorted perceptions of that which is important in life.

The answer to how to segregate good stress from bad, healthy competition from unhealthy is simple: release the need to be competitive in areas over which you have little control, like appearance or fancy possessions.

However, eliminating all competitive urges leads to a society disinterested in challenges and self-betterment, while cooperative competition leads to self-improvement and awareness of the benefit of rising to the challenge of making the world a better place. 

Ask the average person, again, to describe their idyllic oasis in life, once they understand the void that eliminating all challenges and competition in their world will create, and he is likely to opt for an environment where he can choose how, where and when he competes, but is unlikely to opt for a mellow, milquetoast world of indifference.  Thus, our individual oasis in life is less about passivity and indolence, and more about enjoying and embracing the stimulation of life, on terms in which we are comfortable engaging those challenges.  In short, our oasis is a place where we have a measure of control over those stressors and challenges that we feel that we have a reasonable expectation of hurdling.  We want competition, deep within. 

Your Bad Day Rarely More Than 5% Bad!

www.robertflee.com
So you think you’re having a bad day?  Perhaps, the worst in your life!  Hyperbole aside, bad days rarely are truly bad.

Think of your morning commute.  A fifteen-minute delay in traffic.  Perhaps a rude driver cuts you off.  10 seconds, at most. That’s a mere 910 seconds out of a day of 86,400 seconds. The “bad day” has consumed no more than 1% of your day.  However, the delay puts you in a foul mood for the entire forty-minute drive, and the first half-hour of your workday. In turn, you snap at a couple of coworkers, and may make a mistake or two because of your elevated stress levels.  This consumes another ten minutes to correct. You’ve added eighty minutes of “bad” to your bad day!  Not only that, you’ve helped to ruin a few moments of your coworkers’ days; perhaps even more than that.  One percent has become 6.6%, very quickly. 

Still, if your “bad day” has no more than six or seven percent negative in it, that’s far from disastrous.  93% is still okay to great, if you adjust to the circumstances.  Unfortunately, many of us let the bad moments fester, and our day goes downhill.  It is all a matter of attitude, and yours is leading to unpleasant experiences.

In 1986 (June 6, to be precise), I had a relatively bad day, that started at about 10pm.  At that time, I was heading to my house with my children.  When I arrived, I found the door locked.  A moment of stupidity followed, where I pounded on the leaded glass window of the front door.  Hard.  Very hard.  It broke.

My arm went through the glass, and then the glass went through my arm, with a sharp spear about six inches long in the bottom of the frame slicing into my forearm, precisely at the wrong point.  My instant, reflexive reaction was to pull back.  That raked the flesh, muscle, tendons, nerves, artery and vein back toward my wrist for a distance of about five inches, into a messy pile.  Blood spurted like a wildcat oil well.  My hand flopped wildly back and forward as I flinched.  That was bad.  Less than three seconds, and, including the angry moment, less than thirty.  Out of 86,400.

Now that bad day had potential to get a lot worse, with the vast amount of blood I was losing.

I rushed into the house, to my dresser (or, more precisely, to the last drawer in the dresser that did not contain my wife’s clothes.  Ripping open the drawer, I grabbed one of my cotton tee shirts to use as a tourniquet, wrapping it tightly around my forearm, and slowing the flow.

I thought it was my tee shirt.  My wife, unknown to me, had commandeered my last drawer, and I had used one of her white tops.  I heard about it from her.

This still had potential to be horribly bad.  I needed to get to the hospital, quickly.  And my wife was screaming at me for ruining her $15 top!  That was when the fun started, as I saw it.  It even seemed grotesquely funny at that moment!

My wife had been home, but was disinclined to unlock the door for me.  The good luck was that she was in the company of a friend, who saw the urgency, quickly got me back into my car and drove me toward the hospital.  On the way, we intercepted a police car, heading for, of all places, a snack shop.

Local police generally are not supposed to transport emergency victims to the hospital.  They are to stabilize the patient, while summoning the ambulance.  I was not going to wait.  I was able to get out of my car, and made my way to the cruiser, opening the rear door myself.  The police re-entered the car and looked at me.  Didn’t put the car in drive, didn’t look to help this profusely bleeding individual.  Just looked at me, one by turning around, the other in the rear view mirror.  I knew my colour was pale.  But when I fell against the side of the door in weakness, the male cop turned more white that I could ever have been.

“Drive, drive, drive,” he screamed at the female cruiser pilot.  She drove.  That, too, was funny.

Within eight minutes, we were at the hospital emergency entrance.  However, neither cop seemed to have the strength or will to get out of the vehicle and assist me.  Both, now, turned to stare, terrified, at me.  I was trapped in the rear, bleeding to death.  I could feel the air conditioning start at my feet and well up my legs.  I could not release my grip on my left forearm, largely because I could no longer feel my hands.  The top of my head felt air-conditioned.  I knew what was happening, and, somehow at that moment, the absurdity of the situation was not particularly funny.  It was, in retrospect, but not at the moment. 

My good luck was that the cops had forewarned the hospital that I was arriving.  An orderly was waiting at the entrance, and, after a minute, stepped forward to let me out of the car.  The cops sat there, and as I looked back at them, they were staring in revulsion at the bloody mess that I had left behind on the rear seat.  I found that slightly amusing.

As I was wheeled to the intake desk of this newly renovated emergency area, I took note of the bright carpet in the area.  So did the intake nurse.  She gasped, when she noticed the blood that I was dripping onto the carpet, and quickly wheeled me onto a linoleum-covered area.  That, I confess, was morbidly funny, and I pondered why any sane  administrator would put down carpet in an emergency entrance.

The rest of the night was a mix of bizarre, tedium and graveside comedy.  The only doctor-in-residence on shift that night came in an hour after I had been wheeled into a quiet area, a compression bandage applied, and painkiller offered.  I had declined, because I absolutely was terrified of needles.  The doctor entered, lifted the compression bandage briefly, shuddered, uttered “ugh,” and left.  I never saw him again!  That was both absurd and somewhat frightening. Ten hours later, at 8 am, my plastic surgeon arrived to begin the reconstruction.  He was introduced as Dr. Robert Grafton.  What a marvellous name for a reconstructive surgeon!

Nine hours later, I saw him again, as I emerged from the anaesthesia.

“What kind of job did you do?” I asked him.

“Not as good as you,” he replied.  It was intended as humour, and I laughed.

The next day, I met my roommate, who had been asleep when I had usurped his territory on the ward the previous late afternoon.  He was a marvellous character, who had had his left elbow shattered by a baseball bat when he went to the assistance of a young man who was being beaten by several attackers.  From his left ear to the tips of his left fingers, he was a beautiful, translucent purple, with the skin so swollen that it looked like the balloon that was his arm would pop any second.  He spent a great deal of time on Demerol.  Anyone who calls the centre of nerves at the back of the elbow a “funny bone” should discuss that choice of words with my roommate at the hospital.  I felt pain just looking at the injury!

That was Sunday morning.  The entire weekend had been a Monty Python marathon on television.  We both, it turned out, loved Monty Python, and we both devoured episode after episode all day, well into early morning.  Neither of us bothered with any painkillers, from early Sunday afternoon, until the next morning.  We laughed so hard, so long, so loud that the nurses frequently came into the room to threaten to evict us from the hospital. It was not that other patients were being disturbed, as our door was shut.  It was merely that the staff wanted to be part of the experience of these two patients, supposedly in extreme pain, enjoying the night so fully and vivaciously.  That day was one of the best that I had had in years, throughout my crumbling marriage.

I learned from that accident that I can do a great deal with only one hand, and practised for months at improving those skills.  Prior to the accident, I loathed sales.  Because I could not return to my old occupation for many months, I took training in sales, and became a very successful salesperson. 

I found, most of all, that bad days – even as supposedly terrible as June 6, 1986 – most often are not bad.  I had less that 2% of my day that could be categorized as “bad.”  I saw a lot of unique situations, and even enjoyed a lot of laughs along the way.

The day would have been bad, if I had not reacted to staunch the negative flow.  By interacting with positive experiences, my bad day became a great one (albeit mightily inconvenient), and I grew, as a person, as a result of what was supposed to be a bad moment.

Before you let that jerk who cut you off ruin your day, and the days of those around you, think.  How many seconds really have been ruined?  Then get on with enjoying the rest of your day, even with its few not-so-great moments.  Have a great day!

Finding Your Oasis: Turning Life Into Luxury

We all seek a safe, pleasurable life, or moment in life.  We all seek an oasis of comfort, safety and well-being.  Finding our own oasis is a quest, and it is a quest that is individual.

This article, on finding your own oasis, is really about you, so to confuse things, and to appear completely narcissistic, I want to start by talking about me.  About what I regard as being important.  About what my dreams are.  About my beliefs.  About the things I do.  And, most significantly, about to whom I relate and love.

Actually, I intend to do very little of what I have just claimed.  Quite simply, I approach life with a maximum focus on living it, and a minimal focus on owning it.  I rent life.  And my supplier makes no promises to me!  That is the basis on which I operate.  Do, feel and live it now!  That is, be and do the best you can be, today.

What each of us deems to be “the best” is extremely subjective.  However, there are a few very definite principles that should guide our direction.  I would like, in this introductory article on “finding your oasis,” to elaborate on those concepts, and help you to discover that idyllic spot – figurative or literal – in this world that is meant just for you.  This quintet of canons are: 1) Know what is important to you.  We evolve throughout our life, so what is important may change periodically.   2) Have a dream.  Better yet, have dreams! 3) Believe in something, energetically.  Stand up for your beliefs, too.  4) Live life, and do so with commitment. 5) Love life, and the things in it.  Even love that which you hate.

I began by threatening to talk about me. I find that difficult, since I have been indoctrinated with the belief that I should always place others first, and that modesty requires that I not talk about myself.  It is a belief that I have analysed, and found that, even though it was impregnated in me as a child, by my parents, it still remains true.  That is the beauty of adulthood.  I can choose to embrace or reject those tenets and moral imperatives that others hold to be absolute.  I can make the choice as to what principles will guide my actions and thoughts.  It is choice , in itself, that impacts on our drive to seek a sanctum or haven from the rest of the world.

According to psychologist, Dr. Richard Lazarus, "Stress resides neither in the situation nor in the person.  It depends on a transaction between the two."  Yet, one of the primary reasons that people cite as to why they may want to escape from a situation, a circle of influence, a way of life or a job is that they are stressed.  And, combining a lack of control over our stressful situation with a lack of tools to deal effectively with stress seems to heighten that need to seek relief from the stressor.  Occupational psychologist, Cary Cooper, suggests that even the new technologies that should have been relief mechanisms for stress are contributing to greater stress on individuals.

So, since stress seems to play the pivotal role in our need to “find our oasis,” many of my future articles will examine ways to deal with that stress.

Much of the lives of many of us is spent doing things that we loathe, or, at least, would prefer to not be doing.  The majority of us, for example, count the seconds until the end of the workday, because we are labouring at a task that we do not enjoy.  We either have to “suck it up” and endure, leave the job, or discover ways to turn the tasks into fun.  That is the essence of one scene in the Mary Poppins musical.  We should, regardless of our job or circumstance, be seeking out those things that are important to us, and embracing them, while, at the same time, finding significance in what we do.

For some of us, ironically, the most important thing is money, and we are willing to endure unpleasant consequences in the pursuit of it.  My wife and I live a life of voluntary simplicity, living with the minimum of acquisitions.  In my blog on Lean and Green Living, I elaborate, though, on some of the stressors that such a lifestyle generates, even though the way of living is intended to reduce stress.  If money is that important, then you need to find ways to achieve the goal of acquisition, in order to find your own oasis.  However, a word of caution:  money, most often, is not the objective.  It is what that money signifies, so look deeper, to find the truly important things that you believe that money provides.

Hand in hand with discovering what is important to you is understanding and elaborating upon what your dreams may be.  Dreams are viewed as being distant goals, rather than immediate rewards.  In fact, dreams can be close at hand, or even instantaneous.  My dream is to share a way to live harmoniously, with every one of nature’s gifts, free of intolerance, and to live magnanimously.  While I have not reached that goal (and never will, since the goal constantly moves, and I frequently stumble), I have enriched my life by keeping that dream in focus.

The third tenet in finding our unique oasis is to believe in something, energetically.  I believe in the idea that, in everything I possess, ownership is transient.  Therefore, since I also believe that I am “my brother’s keeper,”  I should not waste or frivolously destroy what I have been given, and should, indeed, seek to improve what I possess before passing it on.  Tied with each of the other four canons of living, I spend much of my leisure time exploring energy and conservation concepts, in the hope that I can improve on what is available currently.  It may be vain, but it is satisfying.

How many of us live our lives with commitment?  How many of us passively watch our lives expire?  By doing little to rescue ourselves, we contribute to our stress and our feelings of being lost and helpless.  Stand up and be counted.  You may be standing up on the side opposite me, but that neither makes you right or wrong.  It makes you dedicated and enthusiastic about that which you choose to embrace, and that takes you a step closer to finding your oasis.

Lastly, we need to love life, and everything in it.  My severed finger, or my long-distant failed marriages, or my infrequent financial crises may not be pleasant, but they reveal to us that we are not observers of life: we are participants, and we should as eagerly endure these hurdles as we do those special, wonderful moments in life, that occur far more frequently than the bitter ones.

There is no one answer to how all of us achieve the goals and objectives outlined in our guide to finding our own oasis.  There are thousands of ideas and routes, as well as side trails and detours.  Nonetheless, when we set out on the journey toward our oasis in the desert, we will already have begun to find it.