"Chasing meaning is more important to your health than avoiding discomfort."

I think that kind of says it all.

This is the final answer to a question at a marvelous TED Talk from Kelly McGonigal, "How To Make Stress Your Friend".

Go ahead. Watch:

For those not watching, the upshot was that the attitude toward stress made all the difference in the world.

Those who faced heavy stress and expected bad physical results, well, died. Those who didn't, not only held up well but actually thrived better that those under less stress.

Her Twitter feed includes a number of mindfulness entries, too. Not surprising, I guess.

So, 1) Don't sweat the stressful stuff. Let it come and generate lots of oxytocin to strengthen the heart and social connections; 2) Practice, practice, practice.

And pursue what seems important, regardless of the additional stress.

I will note, though, that what she DOESN'T say is that uncomfortable things automatically convey meaning.

Retiring Books

Saturday I started clearing out books from my basement office.

If you've not been there, then perhaps you don't know that books are the primary component of my office--bookcases and bookcases and piles and stacks. New and old and ancient. Tech and fiction and poetry and mythology and random volumes from my life, my mom's life and my grandparents' lives.

This has been comforting pretty much all my life. Also common: the rest of the house is also built of books, although in different genres and histories and owners. If Karen and I instilled one thing in our kids, one thing I got from both my parents, it is that books are life.

But...

Books are busy, too.

I realized, or realized again, Saturday morning that there are no quiet places, no un-busy places, in the house when it comes to looking at it. No place that would be particularly restful for, say, meditation. It's not that the sound level or physical activity level of the house is busy--it's not--but that everywhere the eye might rest is something--books, bowls, papers, electronica.

And I found I desired a quiet place. A visually quiet place.

So I started packing up books in my basement office, the one place that is thoroughly my space. And the books were the obvious place to start. I packed nine grocery bags of mystery and science fiction paperbacks and took them off to Half-Price Books. I actually put a lot (two laundry baskets) of old, out-of-date tech books and text books into the recycling.

When I did that to my "Dragon Book" (those who've done compiler construction will know what I mean here), I knew that Saturday, 10/26/2013 was the first day of  my "retiring." It may take me eight to ten years to reach "retired" but I'm in process.

As for books, this just scratched the surface and I'll have this activity for some time to come as a reminder to keep retiring.