Stress has emerged as an important characteristic of
contemporary living. Many medical experts consider that stress, with its
collateral outcomes, has been a major contributor for metabolic disorders and
psycho-somatic diseases. However, there are also some who believe that a
certain level of stress is required for an individual to perform at his or her
full potential. Whatever be the truth of this concept, it would certainly be
better if one’s full potential is achieved without stressing oneself. To
appreciate this, one needs to delve into the real meaning of stress. Stress is
pressure or worry on a person caused by problems and difficulties in life. Stressed
individuals suffer by themselves, fighting unseen (and unnecessary) battles
with invisible (and unreal) enemies; sadly and inevitably, they also cause
suffering by causing stress in, and to, their families and teams. There is a
debate whether such perceptions of stress are real or self-inflicted. CNN
carried a very nice analysis of stress as a new universal phenomenon and
approaches to cope with it. (http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/19/health/stress-free-acceptance).
It considers stress as an internal factor which can be moderated by the
individual rather than blamed on circumstances imposed on the individual
externally. A central theme of the article is that pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow,
peace or stress – these are not found in external objects or beings but instead
are found in the relationship one has with those things. The article also makes
two other important points. One’s relationship with the world is entirely
dependent on the nature of one’s inner personality, which comprises the mind
and the intellect.
According to the CNN post, the mind desires and feels while
the intellect reasons, judges and decides. Stress gets generated when the
intellect loses control over the mind’s desires. The article hypothesises that
the fundamental requirement for a stress-free life is to develop a strong
intellect and control desires. The article also emphasizes that intellectual
strength is distinct and different from intelligence. Any amount of
intelligence, which is knowledge acquired from external sources cannot, per se,
develop one’s intellect which can only be developed by individual effort
through exercising one’s faculty of questioning and reasoning. Wrong
assessments of the external world are also proposed as an important cause of
stress. The author of this Blog (“Strategy Musings”) commends the cited CNN
article, which reads and feels almost like Hindu spiritual philosophy, as a
must-read for its simplicity and relevance. That said, the capitalistic,
competitive and volatile nature of the contemporary world makes it necessary
for individuals to have attributes that can help them avoid or manage their
stress, should the above spiritual approach is not followed. This blog post
proposes that individuals must try to develop five pairs of attributes that
could help them avoid difficulties and worries in life. These are: Aspirational
and Adaptive, Aware and Academic, Alert and Attentive, Communicative and
Corrective, and Primal and Philosophical. These cannot be useful individually
or even as single pairs; they are effective only as a holistic combination of
all the five pairs.
Aspirational and Adaptive
Aspiration is at the root of human behaviour. Some
individuals are bold or blasé to declare their aspirations while some are
reticent and circumspect to do so. Aspirational means wanting very much to
achieve success in one’s career or to improve the social status or standard of
living. Stress gets generated as one works to achieve aspirations, more so
against odds. When achievements trail aspirations a debilitating circle of
increasing stress comes into play. All aspirants tend to choose certain means
to achieve their aspirations but somewhere along the route miss the wood for
the trees. Take the case of students who aspire to join an elite educational
institution, in India or abroad. They typically miss the point that acquiring
academic excellence regardless of the institution is more important than
wanting to join the elite institution or losing motivation when the admission
is missed. Same is the case of professionals who seek to join top-rung corporations;
in the process, they miss their own ability to impact positively any
institution they are eventually able to join with the right professional skills.
Aspiration must be accompanied by an adaptive attribute. Adaptive means being
able to change when necessary in order to deal with different situations.
Individuals as well as organizations frequently encounter situations which are
quite different from those envisaged when they would tune in, and scale up,
their aspirations. Being adaptive does not mean scaling down aspirations. The
boom in shale gas does not mean that the CEO of the organization that set out
to make his company a crude oil behemoth needs to give up; it, however,
requires being adaptive to retool the strategy in favour of shale gas
exploitation, including new cost-effective shale oil exploration technologies
such as fracking. The ability to be aspirational and adaptive comes from an ability
to be aware and academic.
Aware and Academic
Stress gets generated when people get into situations without
requisite knowledge or capability to handle. Smokers who are unaware of the
dangers of tobacco or people who are unaware of the deleterious effects of junk
food are just examples of how individuals who rely on them for stress relief
would eventually be stressed out because of the resultant ill-health. Aware
means knowing and realizing something, for the good or for the bad. Awareness
is the basic minimum attribute of an individual or an organization that saves a
situation. Lack of basic awareness leads to considerable stress as one would
get into situations, the gravity or requirements of which one does not simply
know. An individual, for example, needs to be, at the minimum, aware that
handling chemicals could be dangerous. The awareness would lead to a reference
to the knowledgeable experts who can advise on the dangerous chemical reactions
and the ways to avoid or control them. Being aware is the first step to being
adaptive. Adaptive behaviour, especially to changing environment, eliminates or
reduces many causes of stress. Awareness needs access to expertise to be
meaningful. Expertise comes from ceaseless academic quest. Academic means a lot
of reading, studying, experimenting or research to enhance knowledge. Plastic
was a wonder material that ushered in a revolution in the consumer goods and
food processing industries. Yet, only subsequent academic studies, decades
later, could bring out out the harmful effects of certain types of plastics and
the ingredients that are used in plastic manufacture (or remain in the plastic
products). Whether it is the harmful effects of tobacco and alcohol or the
beneficial effects of herbs and spices, all agrarian in origin, academic
development continues to identify new problems, provide new solutions or
revalidate ancient knowledge. By being aware generically on a broad spectrum
and being academic in the chosen profession through continuous learning one
would be in greater command of one’s career and life. As the CNN article points
out, however, knowledge and intelligence by themselves are of little use
without application which requires one to be alert and attentive.
Alert and Attentive
In the contemporary information society, it requires a
particularly isolated and cloistered life not to be in the path of
informational torrent. The flood of information numbs the ability of any
typical individual to prioritize, let alone be discriminatory or incisive in
analysis. Information overload and the conflicting interpretations that emanate
with or without expert scrutiny, especially on the Internet, leads to stressful
perceptions and dilemmas of “to do or not to do”. Yet, some of the information
pieces are true nuggets of wisdom (as the cited CNN post). Being alert and attentive helps one cope with
the stress of being overtaken by progressively or rapidly changing situations. Alert
means the ability to think quickly and being quick to notice things. Alertness
equally enables a person to judge the nuggets for their true worth quickly and
develop response plans. Alertness is reinforced by attentiveness. Attentive
means listening or watching something carefully and with interest. Significant
stress is generated when people are not attentive and either pass up
opportunities (pointers from placement talks by companies, for example) or get
into difficulties (not heeding to traffic signage, for example). Typically, all
of us get but a few seconds to note each information bit of the scrolling
information package of the day. One needs to be alert and attentive to make the
best use of such seconds and the information bytes. At the other pole position,
being alert and attentive is the only way to remain safe (protected from danger
or harm) and stable (steady and undisturbed) through anticipation and caution,
whether old or young.
Communicative and Corrective
Unreasonable external environment could sap one’s energies
and make unreasonable demands on one’s ability to cope with pressure, leading
to stress. All of us would have lived with unpardoning teachers or autocratic
bosses. The more volatile the external environment, the less resilient one’s
internal faculties become. This coupled
with the traditional Indian mind-set of just taking orders from superiors
(reference Vishal Sikka, Infosys CEO’s recent observation) rather than debating
contrarian viewpoints results frequently in people building up stressful and
bottled up emotions within themselves. As the CNN post says, communication and
correction are necessary when the external dependencies warrant it. One’s
ability to be effective in communication depends on one’s maturity. Maturity is
the quality of thinking, expressing and behaving in a sensible manner. Maturity
helps individuals take the adversity in one’s stride and look beyond the
problems for opportunities. Correction would, in this context, mean
self-correction too. Ability of mature communication flows from a strong sense
of reasoned self-worth. Respect (and not arrogance) for one’s capabilities
results in authenticity to the communication. Mature and authentic
communication results in better receptivity to correction, and has a calming
influence on the stress levels. On the other hand, arrogance in one’s
capabilities leads to abrasive communication which is, in itself, a trigger for
stress build-up.
Primal and
Philosophical
Failure is easy to read but success is difficult to fathom.
Ironically, people read too much into failure as if it is the end of life, and
become too smug with success as if it is the proverbial (and automatic)
stepping stone to success. Both the approaches lead to needless stress levels.
Research is a classic example of how failures lead to pioneering successes.
Almost all great inventions and discoveries were based on multiple failures of
experiments. The decline of successful leaders and businesses, on the other
hand, points to the possibility that success could be a quicksand-like
experience; it could result in irrational exuberance which makes one less prepared
to confront new challenges. Preoccupation with failure and exultation with
success are respectively leading and lagging triggers of stress. The way to
cope with the failure-success cycles in life is by being focused on primal
needs at all times and being philosophical when all of the above four factor
pairs do not yield the anticipated results. Primal means certain very basic and
fundamental needs which must be taken care of at all times in life, for oneself
and for all those under one’s caring and protection. Philosophical means having a calm attitude
towards a difficult or disappointing situation. This combination of primal-philosophical
attributes certainly helps one cope with failures and successes without stress.
One who relies on the least of materialism and the most of spirituality enjoys
life as no one else would. Unfortunately, only a wise few are blessed to live
like that; hence the need to rely on the paired attribute kit as discussed in
this blog post!
Posted by Dr CB Rao on December 5, 2014
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