Stress (Day 12) - 20 Days of Chill

Stress.  We all have it and it affects our lives, mostly adversely.  So I guess the point of this post, is to not so much talk about stress, or what kinds of stress there are, but how I deal with it.  And you will probably deal with it in a variety of ways, most of which are probably different than mine.  And if it works for you, that's great.

I've always used this blog as a way to advertise my photos. I'm not into making money, but I do like to show off my work.  As I was looking through some photos today for one that I thought would work with what I thought I was going to write about, it hit me.  Most of the shots that I had in that particular album are stress relievers for me, because they pretty much capture what it is that I do to relieve my stress.

These are the things that I love to do, in no particular order.  Geocaching. Travel.  Photography.  They get me to start thinking about other things, they get me to reorder my priorities and they pretty much de-stress me.  

This particular photo is pretty much emblematic of all three of those things.  This was taken while finding either a virtual geocache or an earth cache in Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. I've been geocaching for almost 16 years.  If I didn't like it, I would have stopped a long time ago.  I enjoy the hunt for those hidden treasures and I especially like the hunt when I'm in different areas than my own.  I get to experience hides by different people.  It gives me a new perspective on the hobby.  

Travel is something that I've always done, starting at age 4 when my parents took us on a week long camping trip to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks.  We tent camped then, but sometime shortly after that, my parents bought a 14 foot trailer to haul all of our gear and family around the country.  Whenever I can get on a road trip, I'll take it.  It's a great stress reliever for me.

I've been a photographer for as long as I can remember.  I used to beg my parents to let me take the Kodak Instamatic when we'd go camping.  Many of the photos that were taken on those trips were taken by me.  My parents bought me my first camera when I was in third grade.  I don't know whatever happened to that camera and it would be nice to have it again, just for old time's sake, but I took many photos with that cheap little thing.

When you're doing something you really love to do, it's pretty much impossible to be stressed.  I think stress just melts away.  As one of my friends said to me one time, "You're not going to be bored when you retire.  You have too many things that you're going to want to do."  Yep.  The less stress, the better it will be.

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Philadelphia (Day 5) - 20 Days of Chill

The two of us stood on the roof of the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  We had been thrown together as part of the Franklin Institute's Fellowship program for educators of technology.  I was from California, while he was a native of the Massachusetts area.  The view from up there gave us a different perspective to the nearby tourist attractions of the "City of Brotherly Love."

One of the people from the Institute who we were working with that weekend in August told us a story about many people running up the steps of the Institute pretending they were Rocky.  Little did they know that Rocky ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was situated to the northwest of the Franklin Institute up Benjamin Franklin Parkway.  The Franklin Institute, which overlooked Logan Square, was featured in the movie "National Treasure" with Nicholas Cage who just knew that there was a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

As we stood up there, looking out over Logan Square, my newly acquired friend commented on the tree that was growing in front of the Institute.  We were on the roof, basically five stories above the square and the top of the tree in front of the museum was slightly above our heads, no more than 10 feet at the most.

My friend said, "You know, this is a pretty big tree."

Looking at the tree, I realized, that from his perspective, it probably was.  I remembered one time when I was taking in the sights at Bryce Canyon National Park and my wife and I were walking along a trail with a bunch of other tourists and we came around a corner and encountered a couple of deer.

One woman exclaimed, "Oh, look at the deer."

I said, "Yep, those are deer."

Then, this woman went off on me, exclaiming that I had no appreciation for God's creatures and that I should be excited when I encounter nature in its element.

I looked at the woman and said, "Oh it's not that I don't appreciate nature, it's just that I just came from Yellowstone yesterday."

The look of comprehension on the woman's face said it all.  However, I heeded her remark and decided that from that day forward, I would show more appreciation for other people's perspective.

"Did you hear what I said?  That's a really big tree."

"Yep, it sure is," I said.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that there is a tree in California that had a branch that was larger than this entire tree.  Everything depends upon one's perspective.

....to be continued.

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