A college professor stood in front of his students picked up a glass of water and asked “Is this heavy?” No – seemed the obvious answer. Then he stretched out his arm, still holding the glass and said; “What if I hold it for an hour, or a day – is it then heavy?” “Not only will the glass get heavier with time”, he said, “I may suffer serious injury”. “So, what should I do? … I should put down the glass”, he said.
Many of us are facing stressors in our lives these days, whether that be at work; with interminable zoom calls, irritating colleagues, irascible managers … or in our lives outside work; Covid, Weather, Traffic, Lockdowns, Family etc.
Some of these stressors are like the ‘glass of water’. We need to learn when to ‘put down the glass’. If the issue can be addressed or mitigated then of course we should do that – maybe talk to the colleague, manage our zooms, change job! But if they are outside our control then we must make the effort to manage how we think and feel about them… in other words; PUT DOWN THE GLASS.