The "S" Word

So, the boy went to his first, big-time audition on Thursday and was probably most excited about the fact that one of his lines had a 4 letter word in it!  He was totally stoked that Mom gave him permission to use the "S" word!  While I found his excitement over cursing amusing, I have another "S" word I'd like to pick a bone with today.  I find this particular "S" word to be thrown about, all willy-nilly, and often overused (and quite frankly, misunderstood).  The word is STRESS!!!!  It's all the rage these days!  Everyone's STRESSed out.  There are pills for STRESS.  There are creams for STRESS.  There are tests for STRESS!  An awful lot of STRESS talk going on, but what does it really mean?  As far as I can tell, every single human (and many of our animal friends) are STRESSed out every day!  Right?  Well, let's see.  I looked up STRESS and found a long list of definitions.  According to Dictionary.com, one of these definitions is: physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension.  Sounds about right.  Okay, so let's see a show of hands.  How many of you feel some sort of physical, mental, or emotional strain or tension EVERY SINGLE DAY?  ME, TOO!!!!  I mean, let's face it.  Our world is just one big STRESS factory.  The thing that really irks me, though, is when everyone wants to compare their levels of STRESS.  I mean, come on people, my STRESS is definitely much worse than yours!!!!!  I'm guilty of it as much as the next guy.  You complain about your STRESSful day and all I can think is, "Oh, please!  That's nothing!  Wait 'til you hear what I went through today!".  So, let's just agree that we're all STRESSed out and maybe think about letting go of some of that tension.  I feel like most of the STRESS we feel we bring on ourselves.  Let's just do some yoga and learn to go with the flow!  Try to find the positive in your situations.  This transition in my life is bringing me the pimples of a teenager, but I'm going to try and look on the bright side - it helps me blend in with my classmates: )