Life

Avoid Traveling on the Road Most Trammeled

It is within your capability to minimize the daily level of self-induced stress that you typically incur

Published

1 year ago

August 7, 2022

Jeff Davidson

Stress is a constant factor in the lives of nearly all career professionals. Much of the stress we experience, however, is self-induced. In other words, we generate stress as a result of our own actions rather than it emanating from an external source.

When we try to cram too much into a day, an hour, or whatever time we have available, the resulting experience is stress. When we take on too much in terms of what we buy, what we manage, what we need to organize, or what we’re simply trying to keep pace with, the predictable outcome is the experience of stress.

What if it was within your capability to minimize the daily level of self-induced stress that you typically incur? The excellent news is that it is within your power. By taking a few small steps in the course of the day, you can minimize the stress that you might otherwise experience based on self-generated behaviors.

Here are some ideas to help you avoid traversing the road most trammeled, i.e., incurring self-induced stress:

Acknowledge that you generally do your best work when you’re in control of your immediate environment. If you have a pressing issue to handle, or something that requires mental consternation, take the time to secure your immediate environment. If you need quiet, post signs, turn the sound off on your cell phone, or hide from the rest of the office if it helps. The 10- to 20-minute stretches of solitude that you carve out for yourself to tackle challenging tasks can yield immediate rewards. Not only do you often finish tasks more quickly than you had first presumed, you’re able to turn to the next task more readily.

Recognize the most vital times of the day for you to tackle challenging tasks. For most people, based on current studies, these times are 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. Your productivity peaks might be somewhat different. In any case, you need to know when they occur.

Realize that some tasks, especially those you haven’t attempted before, require extra care and attention. These often include math calculations or arranging items in sequence. If you opt to tackle such tasks when you know you’re more likely to be energetic, focused, and ready to proceed, you have a higher probability of succeeding.

Establish relationships with co-workers so that you support one another in your quest to get things done. Thus, you respect each other’s quiet times, especially if you have presented such times to one another. For example, you might say, “I need Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 4 to myself.” Also, avoid sending extraneous emails and texts to co-workers that they don’t need to receive. Shorten long memos that can be summarized in a paragraph or two. Cut down on sending anything that could wait ‘til later, be discussed in person, or appears neither important nor urgent.

Leave yourself some slack. If you jam-pack your calendar with tasks and activities, day after day and week after week, when something happens out of the ordinary — an emergency, an imposed deadline, or some shift in your areas of responsibility — you undoubtedly experience stress. By allowing a little slack in your daily calendar, even five to 10 minutes here and there, you establish a built-in safety cushion of sorts. Even if addressing an emergency requires more time than the slack time you built in, you still feel a bit better about tackling the issue because you have some slack. As a result, self-induced stress tends to diminish.

For the balance of your career, you’ll experience stress from many sources. Hopefully, most them are external, not self-induced. With awareness, forethought, and planning, you can keep self-induced stress to a reasonable minimum. – – – – –

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Family

Student Drinking and Drug Abuse on Campus is Over the Top

What kind of society, de facto, condones such reckless behavior?

Published

4 days ago

November 30, 2023

Jeff Davidson

Are you a conservative business person? Then check out the Red Referral Network and partner with Dinesh D’Souza by clicking the banner below:

The senseless loss of five university students in a house fire has stung my community. These were top students, accomplished individuals, and potential leaders.

Someone has got to ask the tough questions right now, while the pain of their loss is intense. In what kind of society do presumably the best and brightest engage in highly questionable activities? An all-night party? Started at what hour? Preceded by what? To end when?

How much alcohol flows? How many drugs are dispensed? Obtained from and by whom? Ingested by whom? How many cigarettes are lit? How many butts wantonly burn down to nothing? What else is lit and smoked?

Foolish Behavior Condoned

The largest and toughest question of all behind these is what kind of society, de facto, condones such foolish and, in too many tragic instances, reckless behavior? Drunk students falling out of windows to their death, engaged in chugging contests until they vomit, on weeknights no less, walking the campus in a state of high lethargy? Being rushed to emergency wards?

Sure, install the proper sprinkler and alarm systems, but acknowledge the ruthless reality that confronts us. Colleges today are the stomping grounds for legions of students who drink and take drugs with abandon. They sit like zombies in morning classes if they can make it out of bed at all. Professors pretend that it is not happening. University administrators accept such behavior as ‘part of the times.’

Such phenomena are more wide sweeping than anyone cares to admit. They are testament to the abandonment of standards, the ‘everything is allowed’ overly permissive culture in which no student is safe.

Break the Silence

If the students who died were among the finest people that communities engender, what does their loss portend for others? And when will responsible adults break the silence about the utter absurdity with which too many students live their lives?

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Life

Give Thanks and Carry On

Have a Happy Thanksgiving, if you can

Published

2 weeks ago

November 22, 2023

Jeff Davidson

Thanksgiving: that joyous time of the year when families get together, have a wonderful dinner, catch up on what everyone other is doing, give thanks for all that they have, and perhaps watch some football.

Up for the Challenge?

This Thanksgiving might prove to be a challenge for many people. For one, the cost of the turkey, the bird traditionally served, in some locals cost between 50% to 80% more than last year, and turkey was already expensive.

Among your relatives a few might be vegans or vegetarians. If you have a vegan enforcer in the family, this person will rail on and on against eating meat, and about how turkeys have lives just like we do.

One of your vegan or vegetarian relatives might offer a discourse on how cranberries should be harvested a different way, the dangers of turkey stuffing, and the problem with vegetables that you might be serving, the risk of having too many starches – potatoes or rice – and the evils of wine, beer, and other alcoholic drinks.

Topics Worth Avoiding

The politics to consider abound. Since roughly half of the country votes Democrat and half votes Republican, the odds are overwhelming that you’re going to have somebody with opposing politics at the table. During Trump’s years as president, many families had to navigate around the topic of the presidency, prevailing policies. and so on.

Today, while there’s no question that Joe Biden is completely inane as leader, the same delicate navigation needs to occur. As miraculous as this might seem, some on the left actually approve of what Biden has been doing. Note: don’t be concerned about the Bidens going hungry. With all those under-the-table payment from Ukraine and China, they can EASILY afford a huge, expensive turkey with all of the trimmings.

If you can avoid discussing the eight million invaders illegally crossing our borders, rampant inflation, the U.S. Afghanistan withdrawal, the crisis in Israel and potential for World War III, drag time story hour for children, transgenderism, the bogus lawsuits against Donald Trump, the unending crimes of Hunter Biden, the payola to Joe Biden, FBI corruption, the historic unpopularity and ineptness of Kamala Harris, and about 30 or so other topics, your dinner should go smoothly. Enjoy!

A huge current wrinkle on the political scene is that recent surveys reveal at least one-quarter of Democrats actually approve of Hamas, atrocities and all, and side with Palestine on all issues large and small. They believe that Israel is an apartheid state and that Jews are today’s Nazis. Apparently they’ve never visited Israel and have no Jewish friends.

Depending on how many Democrats attend your Thanksgiving gathering, if it’s four or more, mathematically speaking you have a decent chance that one is a pro-Hamas Democrat. Wooo… Now, you really have to stay clear of current issues or your dinner table might be as inflamed verbally as the Middle East is with armaments.

Insufferable Stuffing

After everyone is stuffed with turkey, vegeburgers, or whatever the people who like rabbit food eat, you might sit in the den and turn on a football game. Quickly, you’ll have a stark reminder of how far political correctness has infected society.

If the Washington Commanders are playing, it’s hard to forget that they used to be called the Washington Redskins until the wokesters among us demanded that the name must be changed. Not so ironically, 90% of native Americans actually want the name Washington Redskins reinstalled, and currently are petitioning for it.

In baseball, the Cleveland Indians “had” to be renamed to the Cleveland Guardians. Potentially, there’s no end of this malarkey. Should the Minnesota Vikings change their name? After all, people from Scandinavia might object to the term “Vikings.” While we’re at it, consider college basketball. The Wake Forest University Demon Deacons are due for a name change, if you’re on the Left. So, too, the Duke University Blue Devils, the Arizona University Aztecs, and on and on.

Landmines to Side Step

With all these potential land mines to side step, and all the ways that otherwise pleasant conversations on a pleasant day could occur, you have to be on guard.

Nevertheless, I wish you and yours a happy Thanksgiving. May you survive the day, fully intact, and ready to have a decent Black Friday.

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