Gillian (whom I miss dearly) just pointed out something awesome to me: I am the most relaxed person in the universe.
I have no stress. None! While others think of chillaxin’ as something they like to do during downtime, I think of it on par with oxygen – I don’t have to think about breathing, I just do it. Likewise, I don’t have to set aside some quiet time for myself: my entire life is a warm ocean breeze along a pure white beach dotted with palm trees, Diet Coke machines, and no pants.
CNN Money just released a list of the 10 Least Stressful Jobs, and I’m on the list not once but twice:
- Education/Training Consultant
- Physical Therapist
- College Professor
- Software Developer
- Technical Writer
- Telecommunications Network Engineer
- Speech-Language Pathologist
- Software Architect
- Occupational Therapist
- Civil Engineer
I have the 5th and 1st least stressful jobs available. YEAH! I am relaxed and fancy free! I’m so chill I take uppers just to get to baseline. I mainline hardcore drugs just to get above status quo. I cut myself just to feel. I bleed just to know I’m alive. I .. quote Goo Goo Dolls lyrics when no one’s looking. Sorry.
Seriously though, I laughed long and hard at that list – but then I thought about it. The majority of the stress I feel doesn’t actually come from the act of writing things technically, or training people to do things like tutu-wearing grizzly bears – my stress comes from the other things I do, like, like wrangling routers and creating highly detailed video game organizations in CRM for my own amusement during testing and dealing with irrational managers with god complexes. If I did nothing but my job description, I’d be stress free (and bored out of my mind). Where’s the fun in that? A little stress does a body good. It also makes me swear like an incontinent sailor, much to the amusement of those around me.
Now, last night? Last night I was stressed. I had to call my mother and ask if she’s thought about the huge favour I asked of her. She has, and the thoughts came in the form of screaming: it’s my fault that our car got broken into and that we don’t have thousands of dollars lying around all willy-nilly and that we’re not over the age of 55 and/or terminally ill. There was a lot of screaming and while she wasn’t exactly coherent, it is likely that I am also to blame for her car needing new tires, cataract surgery, the fact that she needs a new crown on her tooth, and property tax. All these things are my fault. Sorry.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that my mother just plain sucks.
I may be a terrible daughter, but she is fucking insane.
(post title is a line from “Relax” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which was Zoolander’s trigger to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia, which is my mother’s nationality: I love it when things go full circle)
howl at the moon
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