Pit-bull, Love...Same Thing

“The physiology of being chased by a pit-bull and being in love is exactly the same.”

I picked-up my head from my notes and laughed with the rest of the training class. We had just finished watching a section of John Miller’s Question Behind the Question seminar and were discussing one of the main points. Our trainer looked at all of us and continued.

“Think about it. If you’re getting chased by a pit-bull, what happens to your body? Your heart rate goes up, your stomach gets butterflies. Your muscles get tense, right?” We all nodded. “Great. Now what happens when you walk in a room and see that perfect person?”

The group of twenty or so people who had gathered this morning for the seminar nodded and murmured. The light bulb had gone off. Our trainer smiled and reiterated the point Miller had made.

“So you see…Stress is a choice.”

Ain’t that the friggin’ truth? There are things in this life that we can and cannot control. But how we allow ourselves to take the reaction is something we control completely. We can blow it off and handle the problem or we can wallow in our own supposed misery.

It’s easy to whine and bitch, isn’t it? Humans are naturally so self-absorbed that we lose touch with the reality around us. During John Miller’s class, I learned that we’re so wrapped up in our little drama (Well, what WE believe is drama) that we call life, that we tend to become selfish and don’t see what the good things that happen before us. We focus on how the problem affects us, but don’t ever come up with solutions. Even worse yet, we focus on what’s wrong with everything/everyone else in our life, yet we never figure out that it’s ourselves that we have to fix.

Basically: We try to fix things in other people that we really need to fix in ourselves.

And then the end result is stress. Why? Ladies – have you cured your man of that one habit that annoys the crap out of you? Men – when was the last time your woman successfully listened when you said, “Not now honey…I’m watching the game?” Changing someone else is about as easy as…well…herding cats.

But we have a choice. Only we control the experience we have in life. I admit that I sat in my training class today and had to reflect. When I got laid off of my other job 5 years ago, I could have sat back and become what Miller calls a “Chief Whiner:”

Why did they have to lay me off? I gave them the five best years of my life! Didn’t any of my sacrifices mean anything to you people?! Ungrateful, that’s what you guys are. Your stupid company sucked anyway. You wouldn’t know good business from a hole in the ground…

And sadly, I did say exactly that as I drove home with the contents of my desk boxed up in the back seat. I was fully prepared to wallow in that mud pool. I didn’t know what I would do without the job. How was I going to pay for my bills? Who’s going to hire some smart ass with no college degree? Did this make me a failure? Up until then, I’d never experienced rejection before! According to everything society (and some relatives) was saying…the cards were stacked against me. I should have – by all rights – had a mental breakdown.

I chose not to. I didn’t choose stress. I chose to act.

I took a risk and accepted a job in an industry completely different from my previous one. I asked myself how I could better my surroundings. What could I do to improve myself? How could I keep learning and adapting to make myself stand out. Five years later…I have a career that I never dreamed of having! I have the respect of my peers, the company of good friends/co-workers, and live comfortably on my salary.

The beauty is that this attitude isn’t just about work. It’s about your entire life! You can choose stress or you can choose to act. You can pretend that it’s everyone else’s fault around you. Or you can wonder what it is you are doing to push everyone’s buttons. The only thing in this world you can change is yourself.

Stress is YOUR choice.

So what are you going to choose? Will you put all your energy in evading the pit-bull or will you take every ounce of knowledge you have and get giddy looking at the person you love?