Multiple studies carried out by several universities and various medical research organizations strongly suggest that stress is the origin of a variety of health issues of modern life in the early 21st century — including heart disease, gastronomical difficulties, ulcers, sleep disorders, yes, and even cancers. This is indeed alarming information!
Young families especially, are caught up in the vicious circle dubbed the “rat race.” Young parents find themselves working harder and longer and it takes a magician to organize all the demands on their time: preparing meals, doing laundry, cleaning house, doing yard work, paying attention to spouses, piano lessons for Sally, dance lessons for Nan, swimming lessons for the twins, soccer practice for Michael and hockey practice for Billy etc. Woven into this frantic pace are school projects, parent/teacher conferences, and intense pressure for the kids to perform well in school. All this creates much tension and exacts mental stresses. As a result of all these frenetic activities, something has to give and often it is one’s health.
To contrast this modern pressure cooker life style to the much calmer circumstances in which I was raised, I would like to share an incident that occurred when I was a youngster.
One fine fall morning in the mid 1940’s, just after breakfast, my Dad, Joe Bennett, announced that splitting wood was on the agenda for the whole day. Although I was only 7 or 8 years old, he suggested that I should bring the little hatchet from the ice house and join him at the wood pile at the bottom of the hill below our house. I was happy as I loved being with my Dad and was always anxious to please him. This never proved difficult as my Dad was always very generous with his praise.
After doing a few chores in the barn, we got to work on the wood pile. Dad chose a few very small cedar blocks for me to hack away on with my trusty wee axe. As cedar is extremely easy to split, I was able, after much hacking away, to produce a little pile of kindling. Dad assured me that I was the best “kindling maker” he had ever seen! As we all know, positive reinforcement works magic and thus I was prepared to chop every block of wood in the big wood pile. But I digress.
Dad and I had been at the wood pile only 15 or 20 minutes when Sandy Bell, a neighbour out on the Cobden Road, appeared near our gate driving his perfectly matched team of dappled gray Percherons and a wagon with planks placed along the wagon’s sides to roughly form a box to hold a load of gravel. Sandy was on his way to the gravel pit just up the road from our farm.
Dad put down his axe and strolled to the gate to greet Sandy. These two gentlemen began to converse. Sandy tied the reins around a peg jutting out from the wagon seat which was covered with what looked like an old buffalo robe to pad the hard boards of the wagon seat. Dad leaned comfortably on the wooden gate. I kept swinging my miniature axe but could faintly hear Dad and Sandy chatting away.
A long time later I heard both Sandy and my dad laughing heartily. I glanced at them and both had their respective pocket watches pulled out from the bibs of their blue overalls. It was 11:45 a.m.! Sandy turned his team around in our gateway and headed back home. Dad and I walked up the hill to the house for our dinner (dinner, mind you, not lunch).
Nary a tap of work had been accomplished that morning by either man! But you can bet your bottom dollar that neither Sandy Bell nor my Dad suffered from stress related health issues. Both men raised large happy families; both lived long lives; neither worked on Sundays and both families were well provided for. Perhaps what our modern society needs is for everyone to be given the time and the permission to hold their own spontaneous talk-a-thons
