How not to stress and freak out when you’re at work

I sometimes freak out and stress out about work, but then I just stop and ask myself one question:

Is it life or death?

Is someone going to die if it doesn’t get done?

If it isn’t, then stop stressing out.

Be more like Buddha.

Yes you might think I’m crazy to put this into perspective of life versus death, but isn’t that true?

If umbrellas don’t get delivered to a certain warehouse before an expected rainstorm hits, is someone going to die?

No.

If your presentation isn’t perfect and the Vice-President for a company that makes canned vegetables misses a some slide in his Powerpoint presentation because you didn’t have time to do it, is someone going to die?

No.

Compared to other jobs that people do — military, security, medical, etc — most of what we do on a daily basis for our jobs in the office, the warehouse and so on, is really not about life or death.

You can’t control what you can’t control.

Take a deep breath, make a list of your top 5 priorities of things to get done, and work through that list systematically and in order.

That’s it.

What you can get through, get through.

What you can’t, don’t stress out about — it’s not worth it. It’s better for you to stay calm and work to the best of your ability (without dropping dead at your desk of course), and put things into perspective.