There is a lot of stress in the world, to state the obvious.  But what is also obvious is that stress offers nothing and takes everything.  There are numerous so-called “self-help” books that concern themselves with stress and its detrimental influence on our happiness, but as the philosopher/comedian George Carlin once pointed out, self-help books undermine the very thing they propose: you are not helping yourself with a self-help book.

This leaves us with ourselves, at night, and in our quieter times, when we stress over those people, those situations, those inevitable times when life seems to be serving up a heaping helping of shit-pudding.  All the while, we might even stress over the lost time that we have spent stressing.  Vicious circles are like that.

Life is short.  It is very short, and spending it worrying about obvious problems without considering the solutions is truly in line with that famous definition of insanity.  Continue to sip coffee in the morning, turning to alcohol in the evening and life will pass us by quickly and brutally.  To be happy actually takes work.  It does not come freely and often comes at a high price.  But the cost of the alternative is even higher.

Remember, vicious circles can twirl in either direction.