Stress Levels

This week I've been made aware of how many people have a huge amount of stress in their lives. Each day is a day full of stress.

For each person the stress is different: It could be dealing with your own problems in meeting Maslow's lowest level on the hierarchy - ie. your basic needs of health and housing.

It could be seeing someone else suffer when you can't do anything about it.

It could be a teacher trying to help their kids to overcome problems that the kid faces. Trying to identify what the kids problem is and then try and help the kid, even when the parents don't want to believe that there is a problem. The teacher may even have to try and get the kid into a special needs school and the decision rests on the case that the teacher makes.

It could be trying to get a child the urgent, emergency medical care that they need during a government strike.

It could be someone overseas not being with their mom when their mom is going for surgery.

It could be a work situation where practically everyday is stressful in trying to meet deadlines, without compromising on quality or putting the company at risk.

Each example above is stress that I know about from personal interactions with people. Obviously there are many more that I haven't put down in the blog. It is sad though, cos each person has enough energy to just focus on themself and making it through the day, that often there is no energy left over to be an encouragement to others. It is an achievement to just cope with your own situation.

I'm in no way saying anyone is being selfish in this, I'm just saying this is something I've observed and I wish that I could help others in this, but I'm also in the list of people where sometimes it's an accomplishment for me to just even arrive at a Bible Study braai.

I wish it was different and I could have more energy to help others.