I have worked hard on controlling my stress level and trying to avoid explosive situations, but lately some things have been getting to me and I have been slipping. I am very far behind on a project that I deem to be the most important project in the company. It is an extremely difficult project and I am stressed out over it. Yesterday I was driving down the street in the blinding sunlight and it all bubbled to the surface and exploded when I flew into a rage because I could not find my sunglasses. I was riding along by myself pitching a fit pounding on my steering wheel and muttering a few choice words, (at the top of my lungs like a five year old), when I suddenly found my sunglasses. They were on the top of my head…
I had pushed them up on my head when I went into a store and forgot to pull them back down again when I came outside. I had looked everywhere’ for them, including on the car seat, the console, in my jacket pockets in the back seat, and the dash and was convinced that I had left them somewhere. They were on my head the entire time.
Sigh. Talk about feeling like an idiot No one was with me, but of course God, who sees everything, witnessed the entire incident. (I wonder if He was amused, disgusted, or both.)
One reason I’m so stressed is unfortunately I am the only one that has enough expertise concerning a very important project at work to lead it. Since the inception of our company I have always personally done this particular project. It takes a tremendous amount of my personal time to organize my thoughts, and develop the plan and to personally meet with everyone about it. I still have all of my other duties in addition to this all-consuming project and am constantly being pulled from a myriad of different directions each day to address a variety of other very difficult problems and situations and it is hard to deal with all of those distractions and this all-important hands-on project too. Ordinarily I can just instruct our leadership as to what needs to be done and they can take it from there, but not for this project. I hate situations whereby I am the only person that can do a project, particularly one as important as this one; therefore as we go through it I am training several people simultaneously on how to do it from now on.
Talk about a serious stress producer, training is my least favorite thing to do. I am not good at it and I hate to train people. I am not well-suited for it as I have little patience, and my communication skills are terrible, especially when I am frustrated. I think at warp’ speed and most people think at a slower level and I get frustrated that they do not immediately understand what I am trying to get across to them. The subject matter is comprehensive and difficult to understand and there is a tremendous amount of it that must be taught/learned. I get frustrated at myself when I cannot communicate effectively and I get frustrated with the people I am trying to train. They get frustrated with me because I am impatient with them and some get very intimidated, mad, or both; either or both of which make me more crazy and adds to the overall dilemma.
Another stress level factor is that this project is extremely time sensitive and it is urgent that it be completed on schedule as there is no doubt that it will have a tremendous impact on our sales revenue and be a primary factor in determining whether or not we reach our financial goals for the entire year.
Further compounding my mental degradation is knowing that I could finish the project much faster if it were not for taking extra time to train people as we go along; however that simply has to occur. All of this makes me feel like a big pressure cooker that is ready to explode. I understand that I simply must deal with it as there is no way around it, but it is a very difficult situation that must be worked through minute by minute, hour by hour, a day at a time until it is completed.
Fortunately I do see lots of beautiful light at the end of the tunnel and the end of the project is now within sight. Just a few more miserable weeks and it will all be over and exciting and fun new projects, (in which I can work alone and not have to train anyone); can begin to be worked upon again. I cannot wait! Many folks at Horizon will breathe a big sigh of relief when we reach that point. The end is near!
As I try to find my spiritual lesson from this situation, I look to the Bible for instruction and to prayer to find meaning. I have concluded that storms in life like this are guaranteed; we are going to have them and there are no ifs’, ands’, or buts’, about it. The good news is that the Bible makes a solid point where it clearly states, “This too shall pass”. The ocean reminds me of this concept. I can tell you from experience that the ocean will be so calm that it looks like a slick piece of glass and the next day will be fiercely raging and before I can get through griping about not being able to get my boat out to go fishing, it is back to calm again. The storms in our life will quickly pass and then another will reappear and then back to calm and on and on
Take a lesson from my poor behavior. Don’t give in to satan as he tries to use stormy seas to gain the upper hand on your life and make you stressed and unhappy. When facing the raging ocean of life, it does no good to rage and pout along with it. We must discipline ourselves to refrain from pointlessly raging and instead we should patiently and calmly work our way through the storm, always keeping foremost in our minds that soon ‘this too shall pass’ and yet again things will be calm.
On the larger scale of life the same concept holds true. Keep your eye on the next life not the present with its sufferings and misery
Romans8:18
I consider that our present sufferings are
not worth comparing with the glory that
will be revealed in us.
The end is near!
Feb
12
2007
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Feb
12
2007
Posted in, Stress