“There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under heaven.”
~Ecclesiastes 3:1

The list I am sharing below is for everyone out there who, at one time or the other, suffered from ze silent killer: Stress.

Goodness knows we need all the help we can get.

Thirty-Six Ways to Reduce Stress

1. Pray.

2. Go to bed on time.

3. Get up on time so you can start the day unrushed.

4. Say No to projects that won’t fit into your time schedule, or that will compromise your mental health.

5. Delegate tasks to capable others.

6. Simplify and unclutter your life.

7. Less is more. (Although one is often not enough, two are often too many.)

8. Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.

9. Pace yourself. Spread out big changes and difficult projects over time; don’t lump the hard things all together.

10. Take one day at a time.

11. Separate worries from concerns. If a situation is a concern, find out what God would have you do and let go of the anxiety. If you can’t do anything about a situation, forget it.

12. Live within your budget; don’t use credit cards for ordinary purchases.

13. Have backups; an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.

14. K.M.S. (Keep Mouth Shut). This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.

15. Do something for the Kid in You everyday.

16. Carry an inspirational book with you to read while waiting in line.

17. Get enough rest.

18. Eat right.

19. Get organized so everything has its place.

20. Listen to a tape while driving that can help improve your quality of life.

21. Write down thoughts and inspirations.

22. Every day, find time to be alone.

23. Having problems? Talk to God on the spot. Try to nip small problems in the bud. Don’t wait until it’s time to go to bed to try and pray.

24. Make friends with Godly people.

25. Keep a folder of favorite scriptures and inspiring quotes on hand.

26. Remember that the shortest bridge between despair and hope is often a good “Thank you, Lord.”

27. Laugh.

28. Laugh some more!

29. Take your work seriously, but not yourself at all.

30. Develop a forgiving attitude (most people are doing the best they can).

31. Be kind to unkind people (they probably need it the most).

32. Sit on your ego.

33. Talk less; listen more.

34. Slow down.

35. Remind yourself that you are not the general manager of the universe.

36. Every night before bed, think of one thing you are grateful for that you have never been grateful for before.

Finally: “Never borrow from the future. If you worry about what may happen tomorrow and it doesn’t happen, you have worried in vain. Even if it does happen, you have to worry twice.”

Amen to that, and everything.

Java madness continues in honor of The 2011 National Coffee Day!

Here is another inspirational, coffee-themed piece that I found on ye olde hard drive. It was originally shared with yours truly around six or so years back and now seems the perfect time to actually post the same online.

Get yourself a hot (or cold) cuppa, and enjoy!

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old University of Notre Dame lecturer.

Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the lecturer went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.”

“What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each others’ cups.”

“Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn’t change.”

“Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.”

The 29th of September this year is National Coffee Day. One of the coolest, most pulse-racing and heart-palpitating events of the year, in my humble, Starbucks-induced opinion.

Apparently, according to NationalCoffeeDay.net: “There are 111 million of coffee drinkers around the world consuming more than 440 billion cups of joe every year. And the numbers keep rising.”

Definitely more than enough reason to celebrate! (Especially for StarBucks, Costa, Second Cup and other such establishments that have artfully reshaped the practice of drinking coffee into a complete lifestyle – and a thriving industry.)

The article below is from a collection of inspirational stories called The Passage, published in 2004. This particular write-up is credited to Regina Rosarii. I originally got a photocopy of this piece way back in 2005 from one of my former bosses in the Philippines.

The Mayonnaise Jar and the Coffee

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember – the mayonnaise jar and the coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things like your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions, things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, and your car. The sand is everything else, like the small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

The piece below was written by Karen Kunawicz circa 1997. Sometime way back in 2004, I was given a clipping of her column where this article appeared and I have hung on to it ever since.

I am sharing this because of sheer angst overload for editing and plotting my novel. In addition, I have taken Panadol and ivy-leaf cough syrup for my little ongoing cough-and-cold problem, hence my brain is woozy.

Be very, very afraid, peons!

What is the sound of a heart breaking?

It is the sound of someone curled up in a tiny ball crying softly in the night, the sound of the first unwanted teardrop touching your skin, it’s the sound of a telephone that doesn’t ring, the sound of regret pounding inside your brain with every heartbeat, it’s the whispers of the toy animals he gave you.

It’s the shuffling of feet walking away from you, the sound of your soul shattering into a million pieces, at recognizing the word goodbye, it’s the soundtrack of memories torturing you, it’s the sound of your own feeble hands desperately trying to push back the hands of time, it’s the sound of all those years disappearing into the vortex of Cupid’s kitchen sink, it’s the unrelenting, plaintive baby meows of an abandoned kitten outside your door.

It’s the sound of the rain that has never ever stopped, of all the doors of the world shutting at the same time, of raging, howling storms in the night when there’s no one there to hold you, the sound of your voice as it screams back at you, the echo of I love yous burning holes in you, the sound your heart makes as it tells you to lie still because nothing you will ever do will matter without love.

The sound of the waves at the polluted beach you went to as it moves from the shore and crashes inside your mind, of the sniffles that make up your pathetic S.O.S. to the world, the cracking of the brittle black-red petals from the sidewalk vendor roses he gave, the sound of music he made going straight to your gut.

The sound of the things in your room being thrown around and landing on the floor, the caress of kitchen knives on skin, the sound your throat makes as it swallows your saltiest tear.

It’s the sound of your own voice calling out to someone who isn’t there, of dying birds getting splattered on a city pavement, of terms of endearment used a hundred times a day struggling to crawl into a vacuum of forgetfulness, it’s the sound of your own sobs keeping you company, it’s the cold, uncaring stillness of the air you share your space with.

Destruction isn’t always as noisy as bombs exploding. Sometimes the ultimate catastrophe can be as quiet as a feather falling on the floor of a Zen monastery.

No one else can really hear your heart breaking except you.