Time Magazine today has an article on “6 Ways to Handle Stress”.

We…have a lot of misconceptions about who gets stressed out and why. Twenty years ago, psychologists almost exclusively blamed job stress on high workloads or lack of control on the job. More recent studies, says Christina Maslach, a pioneer in burnout research at the University of California, Berkeley, show that unfairness and a mismatch in values between employees and their companies play an increasing role in triggering stress. “Probably one of the strongest predictors is when there’s a vacuum of information–silence about why decisions were made the way they were,” Maslach says. “Another is having to operate in conflict with your values. Do you need to shade the truth to get authorization from the insurance company? Are you selling things that you know people don’t really need?”

Number 1 = “Unfairness.” Number 2 = “Having to operate in conflict with your values.” Pretty interesting. I have thought of Assembly stress more in terms of the intolerable schedule. But these points suggest other considerations. How often in the Assembly were you treated unfairly–“stewardships,” consequences, decisions….? How often did you wince when someone else was treated unfairly? How often were you conflicted between ties to your family and Assembly obligations? Between schoolwork or job, and Assembly obligations? Between what you knew of someone and how you were instructed to deal with them? Between a meaningful conversation with someone and Assembly obligations? Between something you knew was going on in the Assembly and how you were required to spin it?………………

Read the rest of the article to see how this affected you.