Stress kills
I think we all understand on some level that stress is bad for us. Of course emotionally but the physical toll is staggering. Someone I know had a heart attack today. With fast food, lack of exercise, obesity running rampant in our society, I’m sure you imagine this person as some over weight, unhealthy individual….someone emulating the mistakes of his family before him. But you would be incorrect. He brings his home made, healthy lunch to work everyday, he has a home gym (that he actually uses 5 days a week) along with his personal trainer, he is slim and fit and in his 40’s (maybe 50’s) now, he has no family history of heart disease. What does he have? Stress. Plain and simple. Stress to maintain the fortune he has created, stress of a nasty divorce that is on on it’s third year of hell while his new wife can just stand by his side, helpless. Stress. Such an abstract word, not concrete until it manifests itself into a completely blocked artery, choking the life from your heart. It doesn’t get more concrete than that.
Luckily for this man I have come to care about, he is going to escape this with a new stint and a new appreciation of life. And luckiest of all, are all of us who do care, because we get to have his lesson without the close call of death. For today, I am able to “let it go”.
