[1996] I wrote these reflections for the chair of the LSU Ob/Gyn Department when he was particularly discouraged about the lack of medical school administrative support as we sought to separate the department from fraudulent entanglements.
(1) Stress is inevitable and often irresolvable when trying to live with integrity and compassion ‘face to face with the world’. (2) Such stress originates from the struggle between honorable and dishonorable values/goals. Such stress can/must be managed. Such stress cannot be eliminated/avoided without retreating from concrete places associated with being ‘face to face with the world’. Such stress may not be vindicated in the lifetime of the one stressed. (3) Such stress is increased and made more complex by pride, impatience, fatigue, duplicity, fear, guilt, denial, anger, ingratitude in the attitudes/behavior of the one stressed. (4) Unmanaged stress physically kills by overtaxing the body. Unmanaged stress spiritually kills by isolating the one stressed, by exposing the conditional/superficial friendships/alliances trusted by the one stressed, by luring the one stressed into behavior that contradicts his/her honorable values/goals, by trapping the one stressed in a paradigm by which s/he sees schemes on every side, by narrowing reality to the ‘tragic’ and the ‘crooked’ for the one stressed, by numbing the sensitivities and fading the memories of the one stressed, by tempting the one stressed with a prideful sense of being martyred. (5) Stress can be managed by the discovery of and habitual return to symmetry between engagement and contemplation/meditation. Through such discipline, the one stressed seeks to recover humility, modesty, patience, sight, anticipation, thankfulness, forgiveness, self-respect, memory, fellowship, peace.
(1) Stress is inevitable and often irresolvable when trying to live with integrity and compassion ‘face to face with the world’. (2) Such stress originates from the struggle between honorable and dishonorable values/goals. Such stress can/must be managed. Such stress cannot be eliminated/avoided without retreating from concrete places associated with being ‘face to face with the world’. Such stress may not be vindicated in the lifetime of the one stressed. (3) Such stress is increased and made more complex by pride, impatience, fatigue, duplicity, fear, guilt, denial, anger, ingratitude in the attitudes/behavior of the one stressed. (4) Unmanaged stress physically kills by overtaxing the body. Unmanaged stress spiritually kills by isolating the one stressed, by exposing the conditional/superficial friendships/alliances trusted by the one stressed, by luring the one stressed into behavior that contradicts his/her honorable values/goals, by trapping the one stressed in a paradigm by which s/he sees schemes on every side, by narrowing reality to the ‘tragic’ and the ‘crooked’ for the one stressed, by numbing the sensitivities and fading the memories of the one stressed, by tempting the one stressed with a prideful sense of being martyred. (5) Stress can be managed by the discovery of and habitual return to symmetry between engagement and contemplation/meditation. Through such discipline, the one stressed seeks to recover humility, modesty, patience, sight, anticipation, thankfulness, forgiveness, self-respect, memory, fellowship, peace.