Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Distress is Bad, Eustress is Good...

Below (which I found to be amazing...) is from the book, The 4-Hour Work Week.

"Unbeknownst to most fun-loving bipeds, not all stress is bad....There are two separate types of stress, each as different as euphoria and its seldom-mentioned opposite, dysphoria.
Distress refers to harmful stimuli that make you weaker less confident, and less able. Destructive criticism, abusive bosses, and smashing your face on a curb are examples of this. These are things we want to avoid.
Eustress, on the other hand, is a word most of you have probably never heard. Eu-, a Greek prefix for "healthy", is used in the same sense in the word "euphoria." Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress--stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.
People who avoid all criticism fail. It's destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms. Similarly, there is no progress without eustress, and the more eustress we can create or apply to our lives, the sooner we can actualize our dreams.
The trick is telling the two apart."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great moment in the book. Zoran