“I have striven all my life, not to weep at human actions,

Not to laugh at them, not to hate them,

But to understand them.”

Spanish Philosopher, SPINOZA.



Every job in this world comes with its in-built joys, and associated sorrows. It is only that person who could look at both these imposters alike that enjoys all the seasons of life; the cold of winter, the heat of summer, and the warmth of the spring. Those who have not learnt the art of living with joys and sorrows always complain and suffer from distress.



For the conventional physiologist, like the Late Canadian Professor, Hans Selye, stress meant a series of stereotyped responses of the animal endocrine system to the various stressors in life. He had done a lot of work in this field. The common man’s meaning of stress is marginally different. Caplan defines stress from the psychiatrist’s point of view: “It is to denote the collective gamut of anxieties and pressures of the job, the impetus to seek promotion and success, the desire to avoid failure at any cost, the increasing demands of the post, and more, have all been bundled into the word `stress,’ in general.” Another excellent view point is that given by Lazarus and Folkman who defined stress “as a particular relationship between the person and the environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his or her resouces and endangering his or her well being.”



Stress, no longer means the simple word that it is, but always denotes the pathological connotation attached to it. Hans Selye makes this distinction when he talks about `stress’ and `distress.’ Stress, in the normal sense of the word, is an integral part of life itself. There is no life without stress. If one could avoid all stresses in life, he would wither away and die. Stress is the normal stimulus for growth. That said, I must mention that it is the abnormal reaction to stress that makes man suffer in the end. The title of this paper might amuse some of you, but the fact is that joys and sorrows could both be equally stressful. Marriage and divorce are shown to be equally stressful, in elegant scientific studies. That is why I called them imposters both, following on the footsteps of Rudyard Kipling, when he, in his poem If said:



If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same;



He goes on to give tips for stress management in life in the following lines, in addition:


If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blame it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

………………………………………..

If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,

Or being lied about, and don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, and don’t give way to hating,

…………………………………………

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,

……………………………………………

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And- which is more-you’ll be a Man, my son!



This poem, which netted the highest votes in a recent poll to decide the best English poem, tells us all about the joys and sorrows of any job, nay any life situation.



The concept of Swadharma in the Bhagavad-Gita, in the present context, talks about the situation of job stress and its management. Strictly speaking swadharma is work according to one’s nature (wrongly interpreted by some in the past as the work related to one’s birth in the Varna system of society). In today’s society this may be impossible to achieve. The real meaning of Swadharma is to work with dedication. If it is found that the work allotted is not to one’s liking, one could try and change it into a new one, called paradharma. Ultimately, if one agrees to do a particular job, he has to do it with the feeling that he is not doing it just for the remuneration, but doing it as an offering to God with detachment. The latter gives satisfaction and also peace of mind needed to avoid day-to-day stresses.



Indian scriptures give a lot of information on stress management in particular, and administration, in general. Awareness of these could make us grow vertically, while the western techniques in management let us grow only horizontally. Many of the best management institutes in India, and a few in the West, have taken note of these far reaching methods, which not only try to give the student an idea of how to manage with the head, but to give an inkling into management from the heart. It is only those who have the ability to combine a strong head with a large heart that could be ideal administrators. This could look preposterous for the novice, but is a sublime philosophy of life according to Jesus Christ who said:” Be ye, therefore, wise like a serpent, but harmless like a dove. Martin Luther King Jr. was of the opinion that when militancy could be combined with humility, the world would be a better place to live in. How sublime are these thoughts, culled from various sources, at different times in history of mankind? Man does not change! Shakespeare was of the opinion that: ”Man in a cottage or castle; palace or pad, is governed by the same emotions and passions.”



Introspection is one such method advocated by the Indian wisdom of yore, where each sorrow could be analyzed to make the administrator better suited to deal with similar human problem, the next time. This is called anubhoothi, in contrast to, anubhava (experience). The psychological change that the administrator undergoes, in the bargain, is the essential element in his or her real growth, the latter is vertical, as noted above.



Just as there are no problems without human beings involved, there can never be any sorrow (problem) without a psychological background to it. If there is no problem in administration there is no joy in the job. There is a beautiful motto in a London primary school, which goes thus: “Happiness is living dangerously.” I did not believe in this until I took up an administrative post in our organization. I have now come to believe that every problem (sorrow) is an opportunity with thorns on it. If you learn to remove the thorns carefully, you can always cash in on the opportunity underneath. That needs a deep study of human psyche, because man is what he thinks he is.



When one goes to the root of the word psyche one understands this concept better. The word psyche has Greek roots. The allegoric representation goes back to the soul (psyche, in Greek) being immortal. Psyche (pronounced psychee-all Greek words that end with an e are pronounced with ee) was supposed to be the name of the most beautiful woman on earth, at the time. She earned the wrath and envy of Aphrodite, not only because she was very beautiful, but also because she was the beloved of Aphrodite’s most handsome son, Eros. Aphrodite, who put three most difficult obstacles on her way, made life impossible for her. Finally, she had to be rescued by other Gods, to be eventually reunited with her beloved, Eros. (Denoting the immortality of the sole)



All this looks fine! But our ancient wisdom has it that we do our duty more to satisfy our inner God. One could cheat anyone on this earth, but his own conscience, the indwelling God. As administrators, our greatest boss should be our own conscience. Nothing is permanent here on earth, except the good that we do to others. When an administrator understands this, his sorrows get converted into his joys. This, I found, was the best stress management technique. What good could one do while on this earth, better than trying to help another human being in distress? Most of our sorrows in office are egocentric. If one could win over his ego, life becomes a perpetual joy. This inner God of ours, our conscience, should be our guide in all our actions, who is omnipresent, but being subtle can not be perceived easily. We can never escape his keen observations. All sorrows administrators are heir to, like ego, corruption, pride, anger, jealousy, arrogance disappear once one understands this philosophy.



Many institutes have regular Yoga sessions for their departmental and institutional heads to make them tranquil. Yoga should not be misunderstood to be synonymous with aasanaas. “ Chitta vritti nirodhah yogaha.” Yoga is controlling the mind and making man more tranquil in his dealings with others. Our real boss is there everywhere around us:



“Bahir Anthascha Bhootanaam Achram Charaam eva ch,

Sookshmaavath tad avijneyam doorastham cha antikecha tat”

[That which is both inside and outside everything, it is moving, yet stationary. As it is very subtle it can not be perceived by senses; it looks far, yet is very near]

Bhagavad Gita.



The word stress now has a medical connotation, in addition. This refers to the `burn-out’, a term coined by Freudenberger in 1974, to describe “the demoralization, disillusionment, and exhaustion that results from work in those stressed by wrong attitudes to work. Now that word has been elevated to a diagnostic label in the WHO’s code: ICD10-Z73.



Many of us come to grief because we set unattainably high standards for ourselves, or sometimes the authorities set such targets. Joy comes when one realizes that in life we should try to do our best; it need not be the best always.



“ Perfection shall be thy aim,” said Jesus.



We should aim at perfection, but should also remember that we are, after all, human and are, bound to have our limitations. We are sure to fail at something sometime, how-so-ever great we think we are. If one does not understand this tenet, the morbid fear of failure would haunt us every time we attempt anything; the former could be the greatest stress in life. It could even kill! In a beautiful book How Good Should We Be? Rabbi Harold J. Kushner, describes this very convincingly. Even when we apparently fail there is still hope. Man lives on hope. MacLeish tells this in the Job’s story in the Bible:



“ When the stars are out in the sky,

When the candles go out in the Church,

Burn the coal in your heart,

We’ll see you bye and bye!”



One more aspect of administration that has a lot to do with our sorrows, which has failed to receive serious attention so far, is the psychological health of the administrator. The stress and distress of the administration could, sometimes, tell upon our mental health, as well. Unfortunately, in its infancy this is so subtle, that it is difficult for others to observe. The sufferer usually does not disclose this for fear of loss of status, income, societal respect, and also the loss of the job. Many of them suffer in silence and even the near and dear ones do not get to know this. Such an administrator is a menace to the institutional growth and the welfare of his subordinates, let alone the hardship faced by his family members! I strongly feel that any large organization should have a small department manned by right people to advice the staff on matters, which could be kept secret, to help the `ill’ administrator to help himself. This should work anonymously, through the telephone network. Even the therapist need not know the identity of the `ill’ person. I am sure we will be able to help a lot of administrators to prevent total breakdown, with attendant loss of income forever! Here the dictum “prevention is better than cure” holds well. Many cases of suicide, alcoholism, and substance abuse have their roots here. It is also very good for the sound health of the organization, in the long run, not to mention the enormous good that should accrue to the near and dear ones of the person in distress.



Alternatively, anonymous questionnaire, as designed by Kellner R.A., should be ideal to detect the early signs of something amiss in the mind of the administrator. (A problem list- Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 1991; 3:125-36.) The department of staff mental hygiene could, then, try to unravel the mystery, by asking the person to telephonically contact them for succor. This message should be included in the initial questionnaire itself.



History is replete with examples of administrators running amuck with this kind of background. Winston Churchill used to drink one to two bottles of Whisky on some stressful war days (this, however, has been disputed by his progeny), and had to be carried horizontally from the war office. Some of the air- raids on German civilian targets have been seriously questioned now, in retrospect. The plane carrying Boris Yeltsin, which was hovering over the Dublin airport for over an hour, had to eventually go back to Moscow, as the President was dead drunk and was not in a state to get off the plane, for a red carpet reception by the Irish President, who was waiting down below. This was the greatest diplomatic bungling for the Soviets that time. President Regan used to act quaintly at times, while in office. His Jacob-Crutzfeild disease was incubating for a long time, while he was still in office. One would shudder at the thought that the keys to the deadly nuclear arsenal were at the hands of such a sick administrator! God saved mankind! One could go on and on, but I hope I have made my point.



If one wants progress anywhere, even in one’s organization, one has to certainly look beyond one’s nose. It was Einstein who said “that no great discovery was ever made in science except by one who lifted his nose above the grindstone of details and ventured on to a more comprehensive vision.”


Sarve Janaa Sukhino Bhavanthu!



Further Reading:

1) Selye H. The Stress of Life. NewYork: McGraw Hill, 1956.

2) Caplan C. Mastery of Stress: psychosocial aspects. Am. J. Psychiatry 1981; 138:413-20.

3) Lazarus RS, Folkman S. Stress, Appraisal, and coping. NewYork: Springer, 1984.

4) Freudenberger HJ. Staff BurnOut Jou. Social Issues 1974; 30:159-66.

5) Caplan R. Stress, anxiety, and depression in hospital consultants, general practitioners, and senior health service managers. BMJ 1994; 309:1261-3.

6) Hegde BM. Stress management. In Holistic Living, 2nd Ed. Bombay, Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan,1997

7) Cohen MR. The meaning of Human History. La Salle. Open Court Publishing Co.1947.p210.