Personal stress because we’re all human after all.

Today I feel stressed, but instead of wallowing in self pity, I thought I’d write about it.


Everyone experiences stress. I’m not under any more pressure than Kevin the Butcher down the road (he’s not really real), however, nonetheless, I’m stressed and I’m venting to my blog.

Stress 1: Work

Work is providing me with a sense of disillusion.

We recently had a long standing client go to another company for a “Rebrand”. It happened through hyped up pitching and hollow promises.

How do I know this? – The standard of the “Rebrand” is cheap. The level of care and effort that has been inputed into the project is below 20%. It’s visible in the outcome, but the company still went to them for the work.

Branding is what we do, but apparently, in the clients eyes, we weren’t good enough – This is where it reflects on us.

The fact isn’t that we aren’t good enough at all. If anything we were levels above the company that took our work, but if the client doesn’t see or feel this, it needs to be addressed.


Stress 2: Home

The house renovation. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. We’re living in our house renovation while all the work is happening.

The weather is slowing down the progress of getting the house water tight. It’s stressful. It’s also costing much more than we’d originally anticipated too.

We currently live out of boxes. Tensions run high between myself and Lauren as our quality of life at the minute frankly isn’t good enough – And with the mood I’m in at the minute, I can’t see it getting better any time soon.

We both work full time, we’re tired, stressed and being neglected of the privilege of being able to sit down to have a cup of tea in the living room without tripping over building materials is starting to take its fucking toll.

As I write this, I’m trying to think of an analogy to gain some positive value out of biting off more than you can chew. The only thing I can think of is a sparring session.


Analogy:

When you lace up your gloves and you climb in the ring with a better fighter, you can usually tell you’ve bitten off more than you can chew from the first jab.

One jab doesn’t stop the sparring session though. You bite down on your gum shield and fight back. It usually becomes a brawl, but at the end of it you’ve both gained some value from the intense 3 minutes that have just passed.

You’ve gained valuable experience by standing toe to toe with a better fighter, it’s a strange thing but is really the only way you learn.

The fighter on the other hand has been forced to work. He might not necessarily have been tested as such, but the level of work rate he’s been put through by the game opponent means his fitness at least would have been put to work.

Anyway, that’s what I’m trying to think about this house. I need to bite down on my gum shield and work the body while I’m in the pocket.


Photograph taken by Nia Rees (My Sister)

Value:

This post is more of a rant than anything else, but I will end it with some value by saying something that my grandfather says:

“It would all be worse if you had no arms and legs.”

He’s right. If all of the above was happening and I had no arms and legs, matters would be worse because it would all be that little bit harder.

So am I still pissed off and stressed? – Yup, but will I practice gratitude to try and better myself through my pissed off-ness. I will.