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I sometimes think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Oscar Wilde

Problem solving: Find solutions for your stressors
Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! Feel better? Maybe you do, but probably not for long. Successful stress management involves more than a quick release. To alleviate a stressful situation for good, you must identify the issues causing it, and then create strategies to make the issues less problematic.

The process of identifying stressors and creating strategies is often called problem solving, and it's a powerful tool to add to your stress management toolbox. Brush up on your problem-solving skills by trying these simple steps.

1. Identify. What's the cause of your stress? For a definitive answer, ask yourself:

In concrete terms, what exactly is the problem? Be specific.
Is the problem really that big? Would others think so?
Are you using this problem to avoid dealing with a much bigger one?
Is there any part of the problem over which you have control?
Use this step to identify problems that deserve the time you'll spend solving them. In other words: Choose your battles. You can't change everything, so look for problems and stressors that have the potential for change. And, since change takes effort, look for problems that give you the biggest bang for your problem-solving buck.

2. Clarify. What would make the problem go away?

What do you want to happen?
What do you not want to happen?
Are you attempting to solve the main cause of your stress, or have you lost sight of the real stressor?
Would taking a time management course improve your hectic home life, or would it leave you feeling like you had even less time to spend at home? Do you want to create fewer tasks for yourself at home by doling out some of the responsibility, or do you enjoy some mindless time spent folding laundry?

3. Create. Now that you have a well-defined problem, it's time to brainstorm like crazy. Think of all the possible ways in which you might solve your problem. Now is not the time to judge whether one possible solution is better than another. The sky's the limit. Not sure where to begin? Try to:

Recall past problems that you were able to solve. Could a similar solution work for this problem, too?
Ask friends, family and people you trust for advice.
Remember, consider everything that pops into your head — even ideas that initially seem silly. Your stress-reduction plan may include a little silliness. Maybe taking a salsa dancing class after work a few days a week will help you to unwind better than would quiet meditation.

4. Choose. Of all your creative ideas — silly or serious — which make the most sense? You might want to consider:

What will likely happen if you choose this specific path?
How will using this solution make you feel in the end? How will it make others feel?
What are the possible positive and negative consequences?
Will you be able to carry it out?
Do you realistically think it will solve the problem?
After narrowing down your options, pick the best one and believe in it.

5. Evaluate. Now that you've chosen the best solution, it's time to really think it through. Even the best solution may require fine-tuning. You might ponder:

Will you be less stressed in the end, or will the solution create new problems?
What might go wrong? Can you correct this part of the plan?
Do you have the proper resources and, more important, the nerve and will to carry out your plan?
Is your solution appropriate for the problem at hand?
Remember, this step is just to weed out unlikely solutions, not discourage you. A good long-term solution may temporarily generate new problems. That doesn't mean you should give up the plan, just that you need to be prepared for the new problems with a new set of solutions.

6. Implement. Believe in yourself, be brave and try your solution out. Really commit to it before giving up or trying something else.

7. Reflect. In every outcome there is a lesson.

Did your solution effectively solve the problem?
Is it solved well?
If not, what new plan might work?
Mission accomplished?
Problem-solving techniques can be hard to learn and even harder to use on a practical level. But the truth is, you can't fix a flat tire by willing it repaired, and neither can you diminish stress by ignoring it. Practicing problem-solving skills on stressors ranging from minuscule nuisances to monstrous crises can help you to better cope with stress as it comes at you. Nobody wants stress to get the best of them. So do something about it!


?I wanted no part of politics. And I wasn't in Berlin to compete against any one athlete. The purpose of the Olympics, anyway, was to do your best. As I'd learned long ago from Charles Riley, the only victory that counts is the one over yourself.? - Jesse Owens

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
- Albert Einstein

The secret of making something work in our lives is first of all, the deep desire to make it work: then the faith and belief that it can work: then to hold that clear vision in your conciousness and see it working out step by step, without one thought of doubt or disbelief.

"[Religious] Belief can be explained in much the way that cancer can. Certainly the idea of a God that can answer prayers and whom you can talk to, and who intervenes in the world - that's a hopeless idea. There is no such thing."
~ Daniel Dennett, Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.
- Robert W. Sarnoff

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
- Bertrand Russell

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes." - Seneca

Think about how we are limited by a society that believes in coercive education...and how we can transcend those limits in our daily lives. Find support and reassurance for interest-based, learner-directed education and non-coercive, natural parenting.

This type of learning is sometimes known as "unschooling," "radical unschooling," "unstructured homeschooling" or "natural learning." We prefer the term "life learning" and see it as a lifestyle rather than as a method of homeschooling...and we like to think it applies to people of all ages, not just children

If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
- Johnny Carson


In my life and my work, I value honesty, integrity, authenticity, curiosity, communication, mindfulness, civility, balance, laughter, conciseness, simplicity and friendship. I admire - and seek to move toward - bravery, patience and living in the moment. I believe that every experience and encounter provides us with an opportunity to learn and grow. Or, as Carl Jung wrote, "Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”


“With space…Giacometti has to make a man; he has to write movement into the total immobility, unity into the infinite multiplicity, the absolute into the purely relative, the future into the eternally present, the chatter of signs into the obstinate silence of things. Between the model and the material there seems to be an unbridgeable chasm; yet the chasm exists for us only because Giscometti took hold of it. I do not know if we should regard him as a man who wants to impose a human stamp on space, or as a rock about to dream of the human. Or rather, he is the one and the other, and the mediation between them. The passion of sculpture is to make oneself totally spatial, so that from the depth of space, the stature of a man may sally forth. Thoughts of stone haunt Giacometti. Once he had a terror of emptiness; for months, he came and went with an abyss at his side; space had come to know through him its desolate sterility. Another time, it seemed to him that objects dulled and dead, no longer touched the earth, he inhabited a floating universe, he knew in his flesh, and to the point of martyrdom, that there is neither high nor low in space, nor real contact between things; but, at the same time, he knew that the sculptor’s task is to carve in this infinite archipelago the full form of the only being who can touch other beings. I know nobody as sensitive as he to the magic of faces and gestures; he regards them with a passionate desire, as if he were from another realm. But sometimes, tired of warfare, he tried to mineralize his fellows: he saw crowds advancing blindly towards him, rolling on the boulevards like the stones of an avalanche. Thus, each of his obsessions coincided with a task, an experiment, a way of feeling space…”

Jean-Paul Sartre, The Search for the Absolute, in Albert Giacometti (New York: Pierre Matisse Gallery, 1948. Translation by Lionel Abel -- found in Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artist’s Writings.

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself." - Sir R. F. Burton

How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? Is human reason, then, without experience, merely by taking thought, able to fathom the properties of real things. Albert Einstien


"Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful."
- Albert Schweitzer


What does a fish know about the water in which it swims all its life?

"Adversity is another way to measure the
greatness of individuals. I never had a
crisis that didn't make me stronger."
- Lou Holtz


The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.

"What you get by reaching your destination is
not nearly as important as what you will
become by reaching your destination."
- Zig Ziglar

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself.

Measured objectively, what a man can wrest from Truth by passionate striving is utterly infinitesimal. But the striving frees us from the bonds of the self and makes us comrades of those who are the best and the greatest.


Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
- Bertrand Russell

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can
begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it."
- Goethe

"The man who does not read good books
has no advantage over the man who
cannot read them."
- Mark Twain

"Success is a state of mind.
If you want success, start thinking
of yourself as a success." Dr. Joyce Brothers

Never worry about numbers.
Help one person at a time,
and always start with
the person nearest you."
- Mother Teresa


If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. Einstein

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy. einstein


"If one advances confidently in the direction of
his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he
has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours." - H.D. Thoreau

"It's time to start living the life
You've imagined" - Henry James


Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
- George Orwell

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. Einstein



"Nothing in the world can take the
place of persistence...Persistence and
determination alone are omnipotent." - Calvin Coolidge