Which Station

Whats your name ?”

“Raj.”

“What raj ?”

“Just raj”

“How can it be ? Kamraj, Maharaj, Thyagarj… you must be some raj. He kept quiet and started staring at the other guy.”

“Raj kumar,” the other guy said.

“Thats better.”

I am in a train with a side berth allotted to me, could not help watching this interaction.

I got a whiff, he is drunk and drunk’s behaviour is erratic. No logic works .

I could see the other guy getting stressed.

I took over , more to help the other guy out

“Have you brought your dinner ?”

“Yes but it is too early to eat.”

“Where are you going ?”

“Where is this train going to ?”

“Bangalore”

“In a Bangalore bound train, I cant go to Trivandrumi, can I ?” He looked around with a hahahaha.

I thought of helping the stressed guy and I got this.

It was a meaningless situation, I had an option to get stressed or lighten things.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, .

Hahaha, I replied,” I like your humour”. He gave me a smile and I gave a wink to the other guy

I took out a book titled “treat for tat” where the author tells you instead of tit for tat, treat for tat.

After a while, I saw  the drunk  looking for a foothold to get on to top berth, I lent a helping hand  to heave him up, making sure he gets on top and puts  us  out of his reach. Phew..

I woke up in the middle of the night. The train had stopped. Our man, the drunk, was looking down from his berth and asked our other guy on a lower berth “ Which is the station”.

The other guy on the lower berth  turned his head and tried to see through the dirty window glass of the train, the station’s name. The he sat up and put his hand on the window glass to see. He could not find the stations name.

A big sized man was passing by, perhaps going to the rest room. The guy on the lower berth asked the huge guy which is the station.

Where do you want to go.

I am going to Bangalore. Which is this station.

Bangalore  will not come before 7 in the morning. Never mind this station.  Go to sleep. And he walked away.

The drunk on the top berth turned and went to sleep., the other guy quietly slid on to his berth and covered himself

Here was stress in three directions, one who gave, the other who took  and a third who simply kicked. It off.

You may not be aware, a stress in you can create a stressful environment, which affects any body under the influence of the flux. This in turn changes their behaviour and  has a chain effect.

A lot of us think we have no stress. Big stress has a  reason like loss of a dear one, unemployment, financial crisis, a ditch or a broken marriage. The causes of major stress falls under three categorise,  Health, finance and relationship.

There are plenty of small ones that can accumulate and give you blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack, back pain and  neck pain . They may be

Saying yes when you want to say no,

A salesman applying pressure on you,

Leaking pipe at home,

A punctured tyre,

A flickering tube light

The maid with a broom, pushing you around from room to room, upsetting  your comfort

Excess commitments

Waiting for someone not showing up on time,

a minor health problem for self or family members

traffic,

misplaced keys,

Searching for your mobile  in silent mode,

Slow internet

Wardrobe full, nothing to wear

Shoe rack door cannot be closed due to the number of never to be used foot wears

Old newspapers stacked badly

Cables, cables  and cables of your gadgets

Junk drawers full of unusable items

A dried up pen when trying to note down some info coming through the phone

Missing or broken tools

An attic filled with unused items

A car trunk or back seat full of trash

Incomplete vehicle maintenance

Card board boxes of your TV, fridge

Computer files not backed up or data needing to be converted for storage

Desk surface cluttered or disorganized for days together

Family pictures never put into an album

Mending, ironing, or other piles of items to repair or discard

Deferred household maintenance

Bulbs to be replaced

Fan not working

Broken furniture to be repaired

Books lying scattered for want of  book shelf

Time not spend with people you’ve been meaning to spend time with

A missing button in your favourite pant

The right pair of socks

The morning walks, your promise yourself every night

The heel of your footwear drops off

and a million others.

How many can you identify with, in the above list and what others do you have

Not  accepting the reality and resisting them is the fundamental cause of stress. When something happens, we spend a lot of time wishing it did not happen. We cannot undo something that has happened. We can, may be, redo, do it another way, learn from it and prevent its occurrence in the future.

Your house keys are not in  place where it should have been and you are in a hurry to go out. The blame game starts and everybody gets worked up. Finally its found, The family is busy arguing over it and pushes the person behind the wheel to speed up.. We are delayed. The cop whistles  and directs you to the side for rushing past a red signal. Looking back, the wedding was attended. They piled up a lot of stress and  later may be a laughing material. Learn to laugh while its happening.

Check what is causing the discomfort and ask why ?The solution is not doing something to divert your mind like a song or going for a walk. The stress will be back after your replacement activity is over.

Action is the solution. Awareness, being aware while doing something. If the tyre is punctured, get it repaired, if the heal goes off and you have no immediate solution hold the foot ware in your hand or put it in a bag and walk barefoot, yes, walk barefoot and enjoy, don’t worry what others are thinking. You can live a stress free life if you stop worrying about  what others are thinking of you

If your pant splits at the seam, put out your shirt and tell people you are covering the slit and everybody will enjoy it..

If the internet is slow, read a book in between clicks.

When you want to do some cleaning job, keep away from printed matters else you will have a special interest  in reading things which you never wanted to  and leave your task incomplete..

If you are not interested in taking any calls switch it off, believe me everything can wait. You can call them back.

If traffic is a pain, use a cab. It will cost you less than owning a car. Sitting in a cab, you can use your lap top or cell.

The solution to stress is take action on the subject rather than singing, painting or watching a movie to run away.

And the biggest of them all is to answer nature’s call, you don’t have paper or place