"It’s not what happens to you that matters, but how you take it.”

I'm reading a book called "Control Stress" by Paul McKenna. He quotes Dr Selye as saying

"It is not the event, but rather our interpretation of it that causes our emotional reaction."

I figured I would double check that quote, and the closest I could find was the one I have used as the post title.

"It’s not what happens to you that matters, but how you take it.”

Hmmmm. For a while I have been signalling pretty strongly that things are not good at work - to both my line manager and HR. And spent time looking at stress triggers etc etc. Not much happened as a result. From where I stood it felt that it wasn't a question of sheer workload, it was much more about behaviour. No clear direction, no prioritisation, a monty-pythonesque "the X important thing we need to do is...." (and replace X with an ever increasing number).

Then a colleague went off with stress, and another left for a new job. Now we have all the previous complexity and chaos, but exacerbated by 40% less resource in the management team.

So here I am.... stressed.  According to Dr Selye I should be able reframe that... reinterpret it... so that my emotional reaction is different.

Let's think this one through. Why does the situation stress me ? Because I have been given a job to do, on which I am judged. If things go wrong, current culture means fingers get pointed. If I did, somehow, manage to stop caring about doing a good job, I would get hauled over the coals the first time something didn't measure up to expectations.

Rock...me....hard place

:(