To Manage Stress, Remember You Could Die in the Next Ten Seconds
I navigate the narrative of my life a lot.
As I've marched down the strange, labyrinthian gravel road that has been my invisible legacy, the approach of the end of the thing is somewhere just down the path. The older I grow, the less stressed I am about the mundane realities of living. Sure, I still fret some about bills, credit scores, car repairs, and my weight but the inevitability of my death shaves the edges off of the concern. It seems that a very vocal few of my GenX cohort are not feeling the stress-free days, consumed as they are by thoughts of Trump, the injustices of the world, and an increasing desire for drugs to keep their boners working, their bowels functioning, and prevent weird skin anomalies from showing up.
As I sit writing this people are rightfully upset that an asshole with a rifle went into a Colorado nightclub and murdered five people and injured a couple dozen. At the exact same time, an earthquake in Indonesia has killed 268 people but few are remarking on it with the same faux grief. It all underscores a theory I have that, in lieu of Black Lives, Blue Lives, All Lives, the reality is that #NOLivesMatter. Not really. Not to most people. The lives that matter are those closest to us and the performative empathy of declaring those lives who will never be in your immediate circle is merely theoretical.
In the first episode of National Geographic's Limitless, a six-part series with Chris Hemsworth going through a series of physical and mental tests to underscore the need for mental strategies in order to survive the perils of modern living, a woman who routinely tightrope walks across mountain peaks said something that struck a chord. To paraphrase, she mentioned that she had been in a car accident and as her vehicle was spinning out of control, she realized she was fine dying in that moment. She had lived a good life up to that point and thought that dying wasn't the worst thing and lost her fear of it.
It resonated because in my Kafka-esque transformation into a cockroach post-divorce, I've found myself saying out loud that I don't wish to die but I'm not itching to live, either. The reframe on that is in looking at my life, I've accomplished a lot. Not anything on the level of helping mankind or discovering a better way to make an egg roll but significant and satisfying in a personal way. I've never been haunted by thoughts of my death in part because I was convinced—in the way that a QAnon moron believes that Democrats eat babies in the dark recesses of Washington DC or an Incel is fully persuaded that it is the fault of women rather than his shitty attitude that keeps him from boning—that I would expire before I was forty-five years old. That marker passed and a lot of the fire up my ass to achieve something important faded to a nice warm glow.
No, dying is not that scary. It's unfathomable because it is a leap into a void of the unknown and unknowable, but not something which we should shy away. Pain? Totally different thing. Pain sucks. While pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Pain happens, suffering is a choice.
For example, my carefully constructed married life turned out to be a fiction. That realization was painful. It was not as painful as my sister losing her youngest son to fentanyl or someone living in Florida losing everything he owns to a hurricane but it still hurt. I had little choice in the matter. That hurt, too. Suffering after is a choice. To avoid suffering one must develop, in that Chris Hemsworth way, a bit of mental and emotional strength.
Then there's Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The porridge is too hot, too cold, just right.*
Pain works like that freaking porridge. Too much leads to trauma and helplessness. Too little leads to entitlement and selfishness.
The right amount of pain and struggle allows us to feel a sense of accomplishment and meaning in our lives, which builds up our sense of autonomy and self-worth—the cornerstone of a mentally healthy and happy person.
Research finds that when we’re challenged or struggle in ways that we believe we’re capable of overcoming, those struggles eventually invigorate us and lead to a sense of meaning and accomplishment.
When confronted with struggles and challenges that we feel powerless to overcome, that’s when we get demoralized, and in extreme cases, experience trauma.
* This concept is not mine. I got it from Mark Manson but it is so on point, I figured it merits repetition.
I read once about a man who decided he needed to eat more hot peppers. He had read that hot peppers were good for his health and that the hotter the pepper, the better for him it was. His threshold for spicy was low so he set out to gradually eat hotter peppers to build up his tolerance. I don't know if it improved his health but I guarantee his butthole became tough as leather. Goldilocks could've trained herself to eat the hottest porridge in increments, snagged the hottest, chowed down, and headed out before those bears even thought about coming home.
How do we gradually build up our ability to handle pain so it does not become a choice to suffer? Simple in concept, difficult in practice but the answer is to choose to persevere, choose to endure and gain insight from the pain.
You decide to enjoy the ocean some. Why not? It's the freaking ocean! You throw on a swimsuit and wade in. At some point, the current pulls you further out and you go under. You nearly drown. That's a pretty helpless place as drowning is a bit terrifying. You don't drown but the pain is obvious.
Suffering is deciding that this experience is insurmountable. It is deciding that the only lesson is to avoid the ocean at all costs and to wear that one time I nearly drowned as a badge of martyrdom. "Yes, you burned your face fixing an engine but I nearly drowned." You are now a victim of pain and the constant reminder has you reliving that pain on a daily basis.
Perseverance is looking at that pain and deciding to learn to swim. Taking control of that which is within your power and dealing with it. Eating those hot peppers until you can belch acid and fart butane.
Back to that #NOLivesMatter. Of course I don't believe, in my heart of hearts, that no lives matter but there is a substantive and essential difference between empathy and compassion. Empathy is passive and low threshold. Compassion is active and pragmatic.
Empathy without compassion is an empty, self-serving gesture. It is the quintessential selfie. Look at how bad I feel for these people who have suffered pain. Aren't I righteous in my pose? Doesn't the filter on my camera make me seem as if I, too, am suffering from this tragedy a thousand miles away?
Empathy is a tweet, a Faceborg post, an Instagram meme. Compassion is time spent with those in need, some cash without a pat on the back, an actual real life shoulder to cry on.
Empathy is an acknowledgement that, indeed, you almost drowned. Compassion is providing swimming lessons.
We all of us have stress in our lives. Most of that stress is, frankly, stupid. Bills, credit scores, car repairs, weight gain or loss, low self esteem, political scorekeeping without actual skin in the game (if you're so upset about an ideological leaning, run for office, for crissakes), petty disputes between neighbors, you name it. Almost all of it seems pretty inconsequential if you realize and embrace the idea that you could walk out of your house, slip on your front steps, bash your eggshell skull open, and die in the next ten seconds.
You could choke on that Taco Bell and expire. The fact that you were molested by your teenage babysitter will mean absolutely nothing as your last moment of life is encapsulated with a gordito blocking your air.
You could stub your toe so hard it creates a blood clot in your foot which travels up and causes your heart to stop. The fact that the kids these days think you're irrelevant as a straight white guy will mean zero as you stare up from the floor knowing this the end.
Knowing you could die should reduce the stress of the bullshit and should leave only one serious question: if you died in the next ten seconds, would you feel you had a good life and, if not, what are you going to do about it right now?
For me, I'm happy with the life I've lived to this point so if I croak getting hit by a rickshaw, I'm good. If I don't die, I have other things I want to do and I will. Knowing this makes the bullshit we all get so wound up about seem less important. Thus, less stress. I'm the zen-fucking-master, gang.
