The daily prompt asks – How do you manage stress?

Over this long lifetime I’ve handled many stresses in both good and bad ways. In truth it’s managed me at times in life. When I reacted poorly to stress, I sometimes used drinking and drugs.

I realized life was about managing stress. Like a wise friend shared with me, you can’t control a lot of things, only how you react to them. Life is one continuous stress test.

Being older and retired, a lot of those big stresses have passed or changed, and some new ones took their place.

The major ones have passed in some ways. but also changed in some significant ways. For instance, the stress of being a young parent through infancy till they are getting a college degree and one day are saying goodbye to you and their home. But you never stop being a parent or caring or worrying about them. And now we stress with the grandchildren.

The stress of the job is gone. Answering to someone else has passed. But I’ve always answer to myself, and I can be a tough taskmaster. Answering to someone else was a major stressor. I have trouble with authority when I don’t agree with it. And some who knew me professionally might have thought I was outspoken. Which usually meant saying what others lacked the stones to say.

A huge stress, especially in this area, is the daily commute. I avoid rush hours like the plague now. That is a stress I’m so glad is passed because I love to drive, but those 100-mile commutes to the middle of Washington and back were brutal.

The stress of being a caregiver for parents last years is a major one a lot of us go through. But when it’s over you miss going shopping for them, picking up after them, taking them to the doctor’s and caring for them.

The financial pressures are still here, that is a lifetime one for most of us.

The stress of health becoming an issue and eventually leaving this world. Health is the most important thing and it’s what you realize and stress about the most as a senior. Both for yourself and especially those significant others growing very old with you.

The stress of trying to have the energy of a young parent when watching grandchildren.

Thankfully I haven’t had the stress a lot of seniors go through when they retire. I’m loving it.

My stress reducers

• Music
• Get in a stick shift car with rear wheel drive. Pull up the light, focus, bring RPM up, put in 1st gear and let that clutch go.
• Exercise
• Tell the boss where to go.
• Good friends you can unwind with.
• A motorcycle
• I guess I could have reduced your stress by making this post a little shorter.