Friday, September 10, 2010

ON STRESS...

Stress is a funny thing.
It is what you feel when you’re doing something you don’t want to do, and you can’t not do it. That is why cleaning your room and breaking up with you boy/girl friends is always stressful. And honestly, that’s about all there is to stress.
But then again, as you grow up, Adulthood comes into the picture, and messes up this otherwise relatively simple equation. Adulthood and Stress are something like Mentos and Diet Coke- they just don’t get along and usually result in some sort of nervous explosion inside.
Bu at this point, I think I must mention that it is surprisingly easy to identify a stressed adult, basically on two counts. The eminent scholar on human tendencies Hushval Shatska has made the “Observation of Effects of Stress in Adults” the subject of his study for almost a year now, and he has clearly identified these two fronts as the best and easiest ways of identifying a stressed adult: Entropy and Extensions.
Shatska has defined these two fronts and their types in elaborate, extensive details, but I’ll take the liberty of explaining it in brief.

1. Entropy: This is a measure of randomness, and makes people more random and less predictable. It is of the following types.
a. Entropy of Temperament: The Subject’s mood becomes less predictable.
b. Entropy of Habit: The Subject’s habits become less predictable, and old habits die while new ones are noticed.

2. Extensions: This is an addition to any measurable entity that the Subject may be associated with. It is of the following types:
a. Extensions in Deadline: The time taken by the Subject to accomplish tasks increases.
b. Extensions in Waistline: Self Explanatory, sue to excessive eating (see Entropy of Habit)
c. Extensions in Excuses: The Subject needs to excuse his behaviour on more instances. Shatska has identified the most common Excuse to be “the Boss”, referring to the universal entity one level on the hierarchical chain, who is akin to a stress sink.

Using these two effective tools of identification, a stressed adult can be noticed, and either helped or stayed away from, as the situation may dictate.
Though, at the end of his 675 page thesis on the “Observation of Effects of Stress in Adults”, Hushval Shatska has made a small footnote. This says that since adulthood and stress don’t mix at all, it is recommended that adults stay away from stress. This can be done again in two ways, by not taking on stress (implying that one must do only what one wants to) and by not remaining adults (implying that one inculcate childlike values and moralities).
With life today becoming what it is, the idea of stress itself has become a cause of stress. It is therefore in the interests of all those who are threatened by being stressed out to understand the simple equation that links stress with life, and follow Shatska’s two point approach to avoiding it.

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