335. Stress As Suffering

There are always so many things to do and so little time in which to do them. When the time I have available is significantly less than the time it will realistically take me to complete all of my tasks, I start to feel stress.

Stress arises both as a kind of worry and as a kind of tension. The worry is that I won’t be able to do everything I need to do and there will be some unwanted consequence, while the tension follows from the judgment that I can only get everything done through strict and unrelenting discipline.

These feelings are forms of suffering that I’m experiencing. Like all suffering, they actively undermine my ability to do what I must. Instead of focusing on the tasks I need to complete, I’ll be distracted by the worry and limited in the range of my actions by the tension.

Suffering is present because I’m attached to something. It might be a desire for success, an aversion to a dreadful outcome, or a belief about what I’m supposed to do. All of these intentions are similar in terms of the suffering they can produce through attachment. It would be nice if I didn’t have these intentions, but I can’t just make them disappear. Even if I tell myself that the consequences of not completing everything won’t be so bad, I still won’t feel better. I’ll easily see through the lie and go on suffering from stress.

The only genuine alternative is to investigate my attachment and its connection to the stress I’m experiencing. If I can see that this attachment is producing suffering that impedes my ability to act well, it then becomes possible for me to break free of it. My intentions will still exist and be present, but I won’t identify with them once the attachment is loosened. It is by fully seeing the direct link between my attachment and my stress that I gain both the opportunity and the will to release myself, and only then will the suffering of stress subside.