Eliminating Stress

One of the objectives of deciding to live here in West Wales, away rom the rat-race, was to eliminate as much stress as possible and live a relatively simple life without too many worries. Has it worked??

Well, most of the time I would say it has, but nothing is ever quite that straight-forward. We would like to say that we don’t have any financial worries and in general we don’t. We could always do with more money as we don’t have much, but our only debt is the mortgage (and my student loan, but I don’t earn enough to have to pay that back at the moment). We tend to live fairly well within our means, but we do still of course have to pay the mortgage, the bills and put food on the table. Thankfully Anna has a fairly secure job so there should always be some income from that. She has however taken quite a pay drop since going back to work after Morgan was born (that is another story entirely), the result of which is that my income is now an important part of the money we need to survive each month. As a self-employed freelance website designer my income can be extremely variable from month to month and I can never be sure of where my next pay cheque is coming from. This obviously does introduce some stress into the equation, but so far our frugal lifestyle means that financial worries have been minimal.

Occassionally my job itslef can be quite stressful too. There can be deadlines to meet, I try to set these myself but sometimes there are things that people need done immediately. There is also a lot of responsibility involved in building and maintaining peoples websites. Sometimes this responsibility gets to me and work can be quite stressful. I think in a way I am guilty of being too conscientious to the extent that even the smallest of problems become a major thing for me. Working on my own means that I can’t ‘pass the buck’ or even get support and advice from a colleague.

Invariably the things that get me stressed turn out to be nothing and I soon get them sorted, but I think I’m becoming a bit of a worrier. My conscientious nature forces me to think through all the potential problems before they occur. This should be a good thing as I can then prevent any problems, but for some reason simply thinking about them ends up with me worrying about them. I’m inventing stressful situations in my head and worrying about them. This needs to stop, there really isn’t any need, and it isn’t doing me or anyone else any good.

A stress-free life by the sea? Well, life could be MUCH more stressful and the worries could be real, but it could be less stressful too if only I stopped inventing things to worry about.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.