The Sentinel, stress 201115

      These are stressful times and I think I have an answer for dealing with the situation. Check out the picture below; isn't that comforting?

      These days nearly everyone is suffering with stress and worries about health, the pandemic, keeping a job, paying the rent or the mortgage and more things than I can think of at this moment. People are out of work, or having to work 2 jobs to come close to making ends meet. Families are sequestered together for long periods of time and they are not used to that.
      This is, I believe, a way to destress from a lot of worries. Get up and get active in something, anything requiring some physical labor. It can be something mundane, like washing dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, rearranging a closet, anything that takes the mind away from worries even for a half hour. Another thing I have found very helpful is turning everything off, computer, phone, TV, even lights and just sitting still, not thinking about anything. I have been doing it for a half hour or an hour every evening. I find it relaxing.
      Now you might say, “Bill that is easy for you to say, you being a published author, independently wealthy, handsome and debonair, a man about town.” If you were thinking that (and I would be flattered if you were) you would be dead wrong on all counts. We are in this together, stress, hardship, survival in this currently crazy world. Despite being retired, I still have stress about many things, not that I am going list them here and welcome psychological responses. There is an old saying, “don’t sweat the small stuff and it’s all small stuff.” That like so many other things is so much easier said than done (which is another old saying.)
      Be peaceful and harm no one, not even with harsh language. Again the air up on top of my soap box is making me dizzy. If you young folks do not understand yet another old saying, don’t sweat it.