I live with stress. This week my stress has been exacerbated by:
- Pastors in trouble (although there are ways out)
- Churches in trouble (although there is still hope)
- Committees in trouble (although they could be healthier with just a few tweaks)
- Tuition bills (although paying them means my kids get to go to college)
- Out of town guests (although it’s more fun than stressful)
- Commuting (although I’m grateful to have slept on the train this morning)
I actually get more done when things are stressful. Heart-racing, shoulder-aching, tear-inducing stress is not so great. But I like having work to do, schedules to keep, deadlines to make.
There is a good article here about workaholics. Sometimes we throw ourselves in the vortex of stress to avoid bigger issues. And sometimes we just like stress.
What’s your relationship with stress? Is it killing you? Energizing you?
A Church for Starving Artists 
Reminds me of the transformation training we’re doing here in NCP–Bill Lawser says the goal is not to be non-anxious, but to be less anxious. The only way to be truly non-anxious is to be dead 😉
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@Maryann – Bill Laswer was in my wedding! 🙂
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Last semester (my final one…still can’t believe I graduated!) was one of the most stressful of my life. I was taking 18 credits (6 classes, in which I had to write 5 research papers on top of all the other short papers, exams, etc.), working a position with full-time responsibilities part-time, buying a house, planning for graduation, and serving on various university boards and committees in addition to serving as president of my fraternity. There was a week during the semester where I slept a total of 7 hours for the week, and early on I had to honestly assess my limitations. I chose to resign as president, and engaged in one of the greatest balancing acts of time management in my life. I noticed that the stress caused a lot of things to suffer; my social life, housekeeping, and and quality time to spend with my wife. It ended up being a great experience, however, and taught me a life-long lesson of needing to be honest with oneself with regards to personal limitations, serving/participating for the RIGHT reasons (for others and not for one’s ego), and realizing the rewards of sacrifice.
That being said, I feel I am like you that I am driven by a full schedule and deadlines. Having ADHD, I find that (even medicated) I perform much more efficiently when structure is forced upon me by being actively engaged and under moderate stress than when given all the time in the world. Stress, schedules, and deadlines help me immensely in setting priorities.
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