People often say that stress is a motivator. What we're referring to when we say this is really better described as stimulation and engagement.

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.

Here is the tragedy of theology in its distilled essence: The employment of high-powered human intellect, of genius, of profoundly rigorous logical deduction—studying nothing. In the Middle Ages, the great minds capable of transforming the world did not study the world; and so, for most of a millennium, as human beings screamed in agony—decaying from starvation, eaten by leprosy and plague, dying in droves in their twenties—the men of the mind, who could have provided their earthly salvation, abandoned them for otherworldly fantasies.

We need to distinguish between stress and stimulation. Having deadlines, setting goals, and pushing yourself to perform at capacity are stimulating. Stress is when you're anxious, upset, or frustrated, which dramatically reduce your ability to perform.

When a friend is sick, I see the situation for what it is, not what it isn't, and I offer to help as much as she wants, not as much as I want.

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.

It's time we learned the truth about stress. It's time we identified the thoughts that actually create our stress and learned to dismantle them one by one.