Perspective

Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses. Alphonse Karr.

I am suffering from house stress these days as we wait (impatiently) for our house to sell, or, more appropriately wait, hoping it will sell, but, each day feeling a little less hopeful. Given that my life is actually incredibly easy - I have a wonderful husband, a lovely house in a beautiful area of BC, suffer no ill-health, have lots of hobbies and goals, and, have no job to interfere with the pursuit of my hobbies and goals - I'm always dismayed at how stressed I can feel about things that are really insignificant.

Then, I start to wonder if living an almost zero stress life as I do, a person starts to lose the ability to deal with stress. Or, perhaps I never was able to deal with stress. It's been over 10 years since I last held down a job - the usual biggest stressor in the developed world - and I don't really remember whether I was stressed out then or not.

A good way to get your priorities straight is by listening to Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" radio show (or Depress Me Now, as it is sometimes known). I listened today while I was climbing on my indoor wall. The show finished with a piece about New York housing and a new piece of legislation that will evict people - the poor, obviously, why are the rich never evicted - from subsidized housing because some rat-brained legislator has decided that subsidized housing doesn't reduce homelessness. How stressful is that.

Summer storm approaching