Monday, January 16, 2006

The Zen of ensuring minimal stress

To ensure stress does not ruin the day even before it begins, one must prepare one's path to work.
For less stress, one prefers to drive to work than commute as it takes less time and one is in control.
For this, the choice for one: 1) should one spend 20 minutes looking for parking space at Kelana Jaya LRT Station before proceeding to take a 45-minute trip to KLCC; or 2) should one drive 20 minutes to KL Sentral and park there before taking a under-10-minute trip to KLCC.
To choose, one thinks: "One is able to claim expenses for working in such a faraway branch, as was dictated by one's contract."
And such is that one has already minimised stress in THREE ways: one does not have to leave earlier to work; one does not have to waste time commuting; and one does not have to worry about expensive parking fees nor mileage nor tolls.

At work, one found out that one did not fully prepare oneself for the lunch meditation: one has forgotten to bring one's Book-Of-The-Moment.
To minimise stress one must have a book for the empty moments of lunch.
One decides the only way is for one to visit Kinokuniya - the retail therapy of shopping also reduces stress and increases happiness.
One decided on a major stress-reducing capable book: Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary.
See, stress again minimised TREBLY: one has new book; one's lunch is complete; and one did good positive shopping.

During work, one is happy to be able to 'wash one's eyes' as it leads to inner happiness and serenity: the 'quality' of customers in KLCC seen in one day equaled that which one had seen in ALL other branches in ONE YEAR.
One must realise what is meant by 'quality' may differ for different individuals, quite misunderstanding, but so long that the 'quality' looked for reduces stress in one, one is happy.
One also saw 2 happy couples, which somehow elicit the undiplomatic reaction of wanting to laugh within one.
By this, one had no control of how stress was minimised saved by the fortunes of the day.

After work, one must dare the after-work commuters' sardine squash.
One prepares to minimise this part of stress - newly-purchased book in hand, iPod plugged in and bags positioned to cushion one from crowd.
However, new challenge appears to stress one!
"Sila ambil perhatian tuan-tuan dan puan-puan: terdapat masalah di stesen Masjid Jamek, oleh itu kita akan bergerak dengan lebih perlahan-lahan dan berhenti untuk lebih lama di setiap stesen."
One is faced with new choices while one is pushed around by the LRT crowd: does one focus on book or does one watch a podcast, perhaps one like Happy Tree Friends?
Both options provided stress minimization in such an evil situation and so both one did as one desired.

As one prepared for the drive home one now faces the final challenge: the traffic jams at Jalan Damansara and past Plaza Tol Damansara.
One has preparations to minimise the stress of this challenge: Bodyjam 35 music.
One's stress is further minimised by scaring the cars about one by doing the dance moves in one's car to the music.
And stress again is reduced in many ways: time passed much faster with engaging music; dancing makes one happy; risk of accidents reduced with cars worrying for the sake of one.

And one is home.
The penultimate stress-reducing activity is Bodycombat by Calvin.
The ultimate stress-reducing activity is harmonious good dinner.
And the day is done, with minimal stress leading to maximal happiness.

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