Today’s blog
Lynn Murphy Mark
Eustress
“A moderate or normal amount of stress, interpreted as being beneficial.” (Word Daily). I understand completely. As a bit of a procrastinator, when a deadline approaches I get busy. There’s something about the pressure/stress of time toward zero hour running out. I can dust off my “get ‘er done” persona and tackle whatever it is that I am responsible for. In college, I wrote many a paper starting at midnight on the due date.
I think I’m this kind of stress junkie, in it for the pleasure of a finished product. I can create an arbitrary time line for tackling whatever it is. It’s never anyone else’s schedule, although I am committed to honor the day of reckoning that someone else has established. In my job these days, the Department of Homeland Security tells me exactly how many days I have to complete a task. If they want more information (Request for Evidence), I have 84 days to produce it. If they send me a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID) I get 30 days to tell them why they shouldn’t deny the request for a benefit.
Oddly, when I get something from Immigration Services I am determined to put my case together ASAP and respond to them as early as possible. I always hope that the person on the receiving end will appreciate the timeliness and get right to work on the issue. I doubt that is how it really goes. But I owe it to my client to get moving on anything problematic, provide an explanation to Immigration Services, and hope for the best. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, a timely and accurate response helps achieve the change of circumstances that literally changes lives.
Yesterday the news was all about 45, and how he can’t get any of 30 companies to post a bond for the nearly half a Billion dollars that he owes in the New York fraud case. I think this kind of pressure goes beyond the moderate or normal level and is probably not beneficial. It is ironic that this man who boasts of having more money than he knows what to do with is suddenly having to come a little clean and admit his shortfall. This is beyond Eustress levels. Perhaps he should have thought of this when he was inflating the value of his properties during a sale, and then deflating their value when tax time rolled around. Half a billion dollars, or the state of New York may start seizing assets. I can see all the MAGA heads spinning around, looking for a reason to find him innocent and thinking of ways to help him pay his bills.
The other day I had a conversation with a young acquaintance who has three very busy little children. She was scheduled for a medical procedure, had all arrangements made for childcare, steeled herself for the procedure, and at the last minute got a call cancelling it. Her doctor was ill and was not available on that day, and it was not known when it could be rescheduled. Being a young mom, she lives in a constant state of Eustress – it’s what starts and ends her days. Having a routine is helpful except when the routine becomes some kind of emergency. She is usually prepared for that as well. I admire her flexibility.
My daughter works full time and has two active little boys. She is in a constant state of Eustress herself. She, too, is a problem solver and steps up whenever Eustress turns into Great Big Stress, or Distress. But on a daily basis she is motivated by her goals for herself, her family, and her work.
The term, Eustress, was introduced by an endocrinologist, Dr. Hans Selye, in 1976. It is a combination of the Greek prefix for good, eu, and the English word, stress. In his work he identified that for each person, Eustress is not defined by the stress itself, but rather how a person perceives the stress. People have choices to make – a negative response, or a response backed by a sense of meaning and hope. I know, though, that enough stress can literally be a killer. That’s why when someone says, “It’s just stress”, that is often a huge understatement.