Fed Elephants...

...Breed

This is my third blog entry. The theme of this blog thus far has been:

How to Deal With Tough Times and Keep Your Sanity Intact

It’s only too natural to seek relief when you’re in the midst of pain and unhappiness. This is actually a good thing. It means you’re trying to come to grips with what’s happened to you and you’re attempting to get on your feet.

WARNING: INCOMING DIGRESSION!

Actually, I’d be concerned if you weren’t seeking relief of some sort. If you’re lying in bed like a limp prizefighter that just got socked with an uppercut, guess what? You’re depressed. When all the things that make life, life, are all on your back burner, call for help.

Laying around with no desire to do anything isn’t uncommon in the short run. However, if you can’t remember the last time you did something you enjoyed, or your answering machine is jam packed with unanswered messages from friends and loved ones, you’re most likely spiraling deeper in depression and you need to get some outside intervention.

Admitting you're depressed isn’t an admission of weakness, or mental instability. Depression is the human mind’s natural response to ongoing stress and/or trauma. Everyone has it at some point, its part of the human condition. You may not have the inner resources to cope with circumstances that are clearly out of the ordinary. Unless you’re in a high risk job like a spy with a license to kill, or a country with a low mortality rate, you’re not going to be exposed to world-shaking events on a daily basis so you may not have the mental "tools" to deal with it.

The bottom line is see Nugget # 2 - SHARE YOUR ELEPHANT. You have people who love you (Unless you're Usama Bin Laden or a Tele-marketer) and those people will do all they can to support you. So go to them and tell them you need help.

Yes, I digressed….like I said I was going to. Of course if I said I was going to digress, and I digressed, was it really digressing to begin with? OK, never mind.

I’m confusing myself, now.

(Yeah, yeah, yeah, “That’s not so hard to do…” save it.)

Back to my original point which also happens to be this weeks’ nugget,

Nugget# 4: DON’T FEED YOUR ELEPHANT! THEY’LL BREED MORE!

It’s bad enough you have a whole elephant buffet waiting for you. Don’t add to it. For example:

Let’s say you’re in a high stress job. You’ve ignored all my nuggets and have instead chosen to begin drinking at the end of each work day to “wind down”. You’ve just served your "work elephant", which in this case happens to be a tough job, its first bite.

As you go along, your one drink a day turns into two. Now you have a second baby elephant which has just plopped itself down beside you, a drinking problem in its infancy. Add to that, the "work elephant" is beginning to grow in size because you’re distracted at work, you’re having trouble making it there on time, and your performance is slipping. All these factors make an already stressful job even more stressful. Your "work elephant" just grew another size.

When you’re not able to have your daily wind down drink, you’re cranky at home and difficult to live with. There’s elephant number three, the "home stress elephant". You apply the same approach to the "home stress elephant" as you did the "work elephant" and drink even more. Your "drinking elephant" is now adolescent and growing. As you go down this road, you’re attracting all kinds of new elephants – "health elephants", "legal elephants", "spiritual elephants" and so on.

Finally, the elephant that kicked it all off, your "work elephant", does you in. You get fired and at the same time realize your adolescent drinking problem has just matured into full blown adulthood – alcoholism. All the while, everyone around you is treated to massive servings of your herd, until one drink too many and a traffic accident later, someone pays the ultimate price.

I know. This is pretty dire. But it happens. Huge pachyderms grow from baby ones. Avoid choices what will not only fail to solve your problem, but will most likely breed new ones. Here’s some other examples:

Problem: You're In Debt

Non-Solutions: Using Credit Cards, Going To Check Into Cash Places, Gambling, Trying Get Rich Quick Schemes

(No, you can't get rich buying 300 dollars worth of soap and shampoo a month, sorry AMWAY)

Problem: Being Overweight

Non-Solutions: Eating a box of Twinkies because they say “Fat-Free” (Yes, guilty as charged), Diet Pills, Crash Diets

(No, the man with ripped abs on TV is NOT a doctor, and RESULTS AREN'T TYPICAL!)

Problem: You're Stressed

Non-Solutions: Abusing/Consuming Non-prescribed controlled substances, Alcohol, Cigarettes.

You get the idea. Avoid so-called easy solutions and quick fixes, because they aren’t and they won’t. Consult people who really do care about you and they’ll offer advice that may lack the sparkle of a quick fix info-mercial, but their advice will help you get your elephant eaten.

Thanks once again for reading,

You're Dog-Loving Blogger,

Bunji