Managing Stress

Stress is a four letter word that makes your brain go all wonky like, for example, it hampers your ability to count the number of letters in a word. And in this modern world of constant pressure, stress can be a serious problem.

Being a well informed and extremely well read professional, I shall, in this post, counsel you on how to handle stress. By the way, did I mention that stress can also make one delusional ?

The simplest and the most effective stress buster is to pick up a hockey stick and go pummel the people who get on your nerves like the income tax guys, stock analysts and Navjot Singh Siddhu. But unfortunately, the law does not permit us this pleasure, although I suspect that it would make an exception on Siddhu.

So let’s turn to more traditional methods of stress management. There are a few simple rules to manage stress which I shall elaborate below

Rule 1: Share it

Stress, unlike money, is a lot more fun when you spread it around. Always look out for people who you can share your stress with. This will not bring down your stress levels but it ensures that others feel just as miserable as you do.

“Hey, the boss is mad at you for not finishing your module yesterday”
“What the !!, didn’t we have an agreement that you would complete my module since I covered for your absence in the afternoon the day before”
“ Oh yeah !!, now I remember…. Ooops”


Rule 2: Pick up a habit

It is a well proven fact that alcohol and cigarettes go a long way in reducing stress. Of course, people will tell you that drinking and smoking is also going to reduce the number of years of your life. Seriously, is this really an issue ?, think about it, the years that you are going to loose are the years from your old age. When you are 85 wearing an adult diaper and with no bladder control, do you think “Thank God, I did not smoke or drink otherwise I may have croaked at 60 and not have lived to see this wonderful day where I can wet myself and not remember it”.
Have I convinced you that beating stress now is better than living longer ?. So go ahead and pick up a few bad habits now and get rid of old age before it is too late.

Rule 3: Have a diversion

Rule number 2 is mostly useful at the end of the day. At other times, it may not always be appreciated. For example, when stressed out in the middle of the day during work, going out for a vodka shot is probably not a good idea. So have a quick-fix diversion activity something like, I don’t know…say…blogging. Be sure to vent out all your personal and professional frustrations in the blog and also be sure to use a pseudonym, just in case you vent out your frustrations against your friends (“Rascals, never bother to call me up”) or your colleagues (“I do all their work”) or your spouse (“Biggest mistake of my life”). Feels good, doesn’t it ??

So there, if you follow the rules above, I guarantee you that all your stress will be gone and you can go back to being the casual, carefree person you used to be.

Because now you will have no friends, no job and your spouse would have thrown you out.

The Art of Romance

She had seen him stealing glances at her for many days now. Those coy smiles that he would throw at her every time their eyes met sent her heart racing. And on Valentine’s, she finally walked up to him and said “Open out your heart to me, as you look into my eyes, tell me what you see”. He replied “Well, that’s a pretty bad case of conjunctivitis you have there”. So she stabbed him with her hairpin.

Ok, I give up. I suck at writing romantic stories.

To be honest, it would have turned out pretty well had the lady not developed an eye infection at such a critical juncture. But it does prove one thing, before you make your romantic move, just make sure you don’t suffer from these little irritations like, you know, cough, cold, upset stomach…well, you get the idea.

Seriously think about it, have you ever heard of a girl going up to a guy and telling him “WOW, I was simply swept off my feet by the way you blew your nose”. Not gonna happen.

And in the whole of Romeo and Juliet do you ever read about Juliet developing a cough..?

“Romeo my Romeo, (cough) (cough) where art thou ?”,
“Dear Juliet, cough some more, you sound like a songbird with a sore throat”

See ?, it is just not done.

That’s why there are no successful romantic stories involving people with infections.

If you are still not convinced, let me point you to the most definitive guide for all romances…movies. Movies capture all possible scenarios that make romance possible. The nurse falls in love with a soldier with two bullets in his chest in the middle of a war or the hero goes bonkers over our lady who is suffering from amnesia. But there is no movie where, say, a doctor falls in love with his patient suffering from diarrhea.

So the next time, someone tells you that after they met you they feel weak in the knees, they can’t sleep well and they don’t feel hungry anymore, just remember that it may not be love, you probably passed on your flu.

Anyway, the point I am trying to make is no matter how beautiful or handsome you are, don’t even think of making a move when the viruses are loose.

And when you do make one, wear your sun glasses just in case…