“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.”— Natalie Goldberg
Sadly, we normally don’t get us to change until a crisis forces us to. You may think as I did, I can’t do anything about my life because I really do have to do everything I am doing. That is absolutely not true. God never gives us more than we can do with peace and joy. I did a lot of what I did because I wanted to do it. I had myself convinced I had to, but the truth was that I wanted to.
Perhaps you are one of those rare people who have a lot of balance in you life, and you use a lot of wisdom. But if you aren’t, then please don’t waste most of your life before you make the changes that can help you enjoy it. “The executive who works from 7:00 a.m. to 7 :p.m. every day will be both successful and fondly remembered by his wife’s next husband,” author John Capozzi wrote. That is a statement worth thining about. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after the wind and a feeding on it. And I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will succeed me” (Eccl. 2:17-18). I think when Solomon wrote that, he was havng a bad day. He may have been depressed and discouraged because he was wornout from trying to obtain and maintain so much stuff. Later in chapter 2, he said something wise: “There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink and make himself enjoy good in his labor. Even this, I have seen, is fromt he hand of God” (v. 24). How many people do you know who work too hard, are committed to a lot more than they can handle peacefully, and never really seem to enjoy any of it? Are you one of those people? If so, what will it take to get you to change?
When people die, someone usually asks, “I wonder how much he left? The answer is that he left it all. Everyoen does. You and I will never have this moment again, so we should make every effort to enjoy it.”
Stress management is a multibillion-dollar business, and you’ve probably read a book or an article on how to get your life under control. I doubt any of us manage our lives well unless you’re in peace and joy, and that means we follow wisdom and peace.
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