The last 10 weeks have without question been the most stressful of my life so far.

Don't get the violins out for me just yet... I just haven't had a particularly stressful life. 

I said that to a client recently and his immediate reaction was to come back at me... 

"You run your own company, you have a family, you have a team of staff reliant upon you for their income. I would say your life is plenty stressful." 

This is the common mistake we make with stress, we place weight on each individual external factor and then decide how stressed that person has a right to be. 

On the scales my life weighs up as pretty stressful. But it's not, others than the last few weeks it really doesn't FEEL stressful. 

"Stress and mental wellness" 

It's the flavour of the year. Companies are running weeks with talks, councillors and stress reporting system and its great. brilliant in fact. 

I believe that stress is the single greatest factor in health. 

Poor sleep, anxiety, poor diet, lack of exercise, lack of vitamin D, in-activity all follow stress and so follows illness, physical and mental as well as physical pain. 

But stress is the causal factor. Stress interventions and systems can only help with this. They are a good thing. 

However, 

There is a major factor that is seldom considered. 

We are stress seeking machines. 

We love it and live for it. 

We climbed over the hill, we saw fire, we explored new lands... we went to the moon. We seek to create safety where we are but as soon as we feel we have it we invite the stress. 

The differentiation, and I did a bit of sick in my mouth writing this, is passion. 

I don't mean being a passionate person, I mean doing something that matters to you that sparks your passion. Serving something bigger than yourself. 

The fact is that we don't want to avoid stress, we want to choose our stressors. 

Struggle yes, suffering no, challenge yes, overwhelm no. 

My stress over the last few weeks is the type of stress some of my clients live for. Or rather a much smaller version of it. But I hate it, it's just not what I live to do. 

Stress is what makes diamonds. The absence of stress is what causes osteoporosis. 

So if you're asking yourself how you can avoid stress then you're asking yourself the wrong question. 

The question is, what stress do you want? 

and if you can't do what you love, can you find a way to love what you do? 

Life isn't about what we are doing, it's the meaning we attach to it.

Ed Ley