The truth is that stress doesn't come from your boss, your kids, your spouse, traffic jams, health challenges, or other circumstances. It comes from your thoughts about these circumstances.

We all enjoy pushing ourselves to accomplish our objectives. But we don't need stress to get there.

To believe that your husband, wife, parents, kids, boss, job, bank account, or body is even partly responsible for your emotions, to think that there are bullets 'out there' that you have to contend with, that there are stressful life events to overcome, is to miss something vital.

People around the world now complain about stressors everyday, and the word shows up throughout professional and lay literature. But in reality there is no such thing as a stressor. Why not? Because nothing has the inherent power to provoke stress.

You can't tell yourself that your stress is produced in your head and feel better. You still need to learn how to create a change.

Even in this secular country, the threat posed by religious fundamentalists is never very far away. Every major religious text exhorts the same principles - that of unyielding obedience to a supernatural being, and renunciation of the intellect and personal aspirations.

The less you think counterfactually, the less you experience stress. Stress, in this light, isn't a bad thing. It's simply a warning system telling you that your mind has lost touch with what's real.