YOU TOO COULD HAVE A PROBLEM FREE PHILOSOPHY

I don’t have a nut allergy, nor do I need to stick to a gluten free diet. So, given recent reports that allergies in the UK have reached epidemic proportions, I feel pretty lucky. One thing I am allergic to however, is stress. I hate it. Medical evidence suggests that stress reduces the body’s defence mechanism, it causes depression, high blood pressure, ulcers, sleepless nights, poor appetites, and it damages relationships.

By and large I think I succeed in living my ‘Hakuna Matata’ life – that’s the Swahili phrase you hear in The Lion King, remember? It means a problem-free philosophy. My secret is four simple words that will be engraved on my headstone some day; ‘It really doesn’t matter!’

I was driving to my office in Belfast the other day with a longer than usual ‘To-Do’ list, and I got caught in heavy traffic, but when stress began to raise its ugly head, I washed it all away with those wonderful words; it doesn’t really matter. Nobody will die if I’m late, the world will keep on turning, and my old mum’s motto came to mind, ‘If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing tomorrow.’

Now you’d think the most laid-back people in the world should be Christian ministers? I mean didn’t Jesus the church’s founder promise that nobody serving him would ever suffer stress as a result. He said, ‘… my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.’ And yet in a poll of 600 Church of Scotland ministers, 250 of them said their health was affected by stress and a further 180 said their marriage was adversely affected by their work.

How do you explain that one? Easy, they’re carrying the wrong burden, one that has been imposed by someone else: unreasonable committees or demanding congregations. There may not be a lot you and I can do about that, except to commit ourselves not to add to their hardships, but we can learn from their mistakes. Don't ever allow anyone place on your shoulders a burden that’s not yours to carry.