Field of Science

Stress management program with obvious problems and omissions


Our institution's "wellness" office, from which oft springs well-meaning out-pourings, issued forth an invitation to attend an eight week stress management course for faculty/staff.   The description of the program says it uses "support (one supposes a comfortable easy chair), meditation (for people who have nothing whatever to think about), breathing practices (rule 1: practice, practice, practice makes for a long life), self-discussion ("alone: in good company".  Ambrose Bierce), exercise and nutrition (pointless exercise and quinoa?), and journaling (Where you write down everything you were not meditating about.) as resources to manage stress.  What a pile of namby-pamby, introspective, new-agey crap!  And someone gets paid to do this?  You can be they are fun people!  If this load of stuff works for you, well, no wonder you're having trouble dealing with life!  So let's get real.  You need to get stuff done.  Nothing reduces stress more than that and nothing gets less done than self-discussion, meditation, most exercise, and journaling.  You see that's the crux of the problem; the aim is to reduce stress, not get stuff done.  Does anyone think these are the tricks used by highly effective people?  No mention is made of taking time for a daily cocktail hour, and nothing reduces stress more than sitting on your patio (using a comfortable "support") with a nice margarita and looking at the hawkmoths visiting the hosta in your garden.  You say you don't have a nice garden wherein hawkmoths forage?  Well, then let's move on to the fifth of the six points.  Start gardening.  You need a garden as a place for not thinking anyways (point two), so get going.  You need exercise and you need good nutrition, and it gets something done.  Plant that kitchen garden and kill two points with a simple spade.  Gardening is a great reliever of stress, and some years you get tomatoes, which with bread, bacon, lettuce, and mayo makes for good nutrition.  For example, get a hoe and rename the weeds.  Ah, there's a "provost", lop, off with their head.  You do that a few dozen times and it's amazing how good you will feel!  And what's with this journaling stuff?  Why not write a blog so your blatterings about your terribly stressful your life is can be read by hundreds of people whose lives are so equally pathetic that they have nothing better to do than read your blog and write comments about how much their lives improved after learning introspective BS from their own wellness offices.  Boy, getting this off my chest makes me feel much better!  Time for a cup of coffee. 

1 comment:

mr_subjunctive said...

Suppose, though, just hypothetically: what if your personality, experiences, motivations, challenges, and preferences aren't universally shared by all humans?