On my way to buy crap I didn’t need the other day, I tailgated a car that happened to have a great bumper sticker. All it had on it were the words, “It’s all Temporary.” That really hit me and made a lot of things click. Like when you’re trying to first ride a bike, and you keep falling on your ass, then all of a sudden you’re charging forward in a wobbly line. Kind of like that, but more useful.

A lot of times, we all get caught up with work and life stressors, and it gets us frustrated, stressed, and shortens our life. Globally, more than 3 out of 5 doctor visits are for stress related problems. Globally, 23% of women executives and professionals, and 19% of their male peers, say they feel super-stressed. While stress is useful in a fight-or-flight scenario, I find that most of the time I get worked up about something REALLY stupid (or someone really stupid). Seeing this bumper sticker put it all in its place. It’s all temporary. If you think about it, these three simple words make a lot of sense. It’s a common idea in Buddhism, and something that I’ve forgotten over the years. If some situation has you stressed out, just realize and understand that it’s temporary. It’ll be over in a few days, weeks, whatever, so really in the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal. Conversely, if it’s something good, also realize and understand that it’s all temporary so you should enjoy it and cherish it.

If you can get into that frame of mind, I find that it calms you down and makes difficult situations go down easier. While I still haven’t been able to stop all stress in my life, keeping these three words in my mind have helped tremendously.

I usually don’t write about random stuff, but I got something in my email today that gave me a chuckle. This email was my usual Buy.com daily spam (you buy that one gift and they spam you forever), trying to sell me hard drives (less than 50 cents a gig!) and other varied electronics. I typically glance at the preview that GMail gives me, then automatically hit the Delete button. But today, something looked off. Curious now, I click to read the full mail. Hi-FI headphones, don’t need..Gateway notebook (didn’t they go out of business?)…Kingston USB drive, have one…then in larger bold font, Trojan Elexa Ultra Sensitive Lubricated Latex Condoms - 24 Pack $10.00. With free budget shipping no less! Sandwiched between the Logitech Cordless desktop set and the HP Media Center Desktop, was a deal on a pack of meat wraps.

Not that I’m phased by emails peddling atypical consumer wares; I doubt any of our inboxes escape member enlargement ads or melon growing potions (let that one sink in). What gave the chuckle was that this was 1) the only item in a list of about 20 that was in larger font and in bold, and 2) it was in a Buy.com email. Given that Buy.com is mostly for geeky guys (come on, admit it, if you’re in the market to purchase extra large computer case fans and custom glowing PSU connectors, you’re pretty geeky), it made me chuckle to think Buy.com was trying to sell a pack of boner armor to geeky fellas who probably don’t need it (or maybe they need it even more?). Anyway, enough rambling now. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Buy.com