Why I Embrace Stress
I almost cried on our last day of mediation training. We were at a Watts firehouse on a hot August day, and the air conditioning seemed to have taken the afternoon off. Plus I'd been working my brain so hard all day that it was basically a big gray gelatinous mound of mush -- just when I needed to remember a technique to use in our mediation role play.

I held back the tears -- tears of frustration, really -- but looking back, I was amused that I got into that state, and kind of pleased with myself.

I'm 54 and I write applied science, and I'm really comfortable in that zone -- even when problems are really hard or I have to scrap days, weeks, or months of work. (This sucks, but it's just part of the process sometimes, when you realize realize that readers will not be helped by a bunch of pages on whatever research rabbit hole you dove down.)

I just got trained in mediation in August -- five intense days -- and I've been working as a volunteer mediator one day a week in the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, doing free dispute resolution for LA residents with civil matters (loud neighbor, landlord-tenant, etc).

I'm a beginner, and there was a sharp learning curve, but I made it clear to senior mediators that I saw myself as a beginner and that I wanted their criticism and advice. And they gave it to me -- telling me where I needed to improve and also just showing me by example ways to be more effective in the work.

It's humbling to be as lost as I've felt many times since August, doing this work, but I get better and better at it, and a big part of my improvement is being willing to not know, being willing to be lost, being willing to see whether I did the right or the wrong thing. (I would go and relate what I did to my supervisors and/or ask for help when I wasn't sure what to do.)

I reflected on this when I read a post at FEE on stress -- a positive look at it. I don't know that they can actually make the claim in the headline, "Why Stress Is One of the Best Predictors of High Life Satisfaction," but I do agree with the subhead:

Embracing and adapting to stress can provide important opportunities for personal growth.

U of Baltimore econ and leadership prof Barry Brownstein writes at FEE:

My life is messed up, why can't I get my act together?

Most of us have heard a variation of this talk track in our heads, or we've heard it from others. If only, we think, I didn't have this problem, then everything would be all right.

We feel burdened by what seems to be our unique sticky problems. Immersed in such a mindset, our actions may not demonstrate our highest values and purpose. What if, Ryan Holiday asks, the adverse circumstances we face offer "a formula for thriving not just in spite of whatever happens but because of it?"

Holiday, in his book The Obstacle Is the Way, draws on the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and other Stoic philosophers. He points out that Aurelius saw every obstacle, every adverse circumstance, "as an opportunity to practice some virtue: patience, courage, humility, resourcefulness, reason, justice, and creativity." The more virtues we practice, the more meaning we create in our lives. Resisting our problems means we are forgoing opportunities to become the best version of ourselves.

"Adversity can create resilience, and trauma often inspires personal growth."

The beauty in our lives often coexists with our burdens. The beauty remains long after the problem is gone.

"Obstacles," instructs Holiday, "are not only to be expected but embraced. Embraced? Yes, because these obstacles are actually opportunities to test ourselves, to try new things, and, ultimately, to triumph."

On a related note, I reference Nassim Taleb on being "antifragile" in my "science-help" book, "Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence":

Nassim Taleb, a risk researcher and former derivatives trader who coined the term, explains antifragile as "the exact opposite of fragile," but he adds that it goes beyond resilience or robustness. "Antifragile" describes the way living things are improved by stressors--becoming stronger and more able to cope with difficult, unpleasant, unpredictable stuff that gets thrown their way.

So, a person who's antifragile doesn't avoid criticism; they look for criticism, because it can be a path to improvement. ...

Being able to seek out criticism starts with making peace with making mistakes. Now, I'm not talking about sloppy mistakes, though these can be teachers of a sort, too. As Taleb explains it, being anti- fragile involves "a love of . . . a certain class of errors"--the sort that allow us to correct ourselves for the better and to better deal with the uncertainties of life.

Are you a beginner in some area? A science writer colleague of mine took up painting. I don't think she paints well, either! (I recall her mentioning that to me!) But she went to France for a week to take an intensive painting class. And I really respected her for being willing to do something she wasn't all that good at.

By the way, I've really improved at mediation. I'm five for five now -- five mediations and five successes: signed agreements for participants in each session for how they'll go forward, peacefully (and even amicably, in some cases).

But even after my second, I felt a bit lost. (They pair people at my level with a senior mediator who can step in and say something if you somehow shit the dispute resolution bed.) It took till maybe my fourth till I felt like I wasn't grasping...trying to remember what to say or do.

And really, it's so cool to be in that position, to be a little lost -- especially because you see that with work (including being willing to kind of suck at something for a while), you can start getting accomplished at something totally new.