Occupational Stress Management

There are many people in the world who can not stand where they work. Their occupation causes them no end of stress and can leave them struggling to get to sleep at night. There are also many days taken off sick through stress related illnesses. It is now time for people to deal with these issues and to start to react in a more positive and proactive way.

In the past I have worked for companies whose employees have made my life unbearable. These so called colleagues were very bitchy, hanged around in various clans and would stab people in the back at regular intervals. At times I would even dread going to work and would feel sick whilst travelling to my office.

I would return home feeling very drained and would have little energy to do anything in the evenings. I would then decide to go to bed early but would basically just lay their worrying about the next day. This could last for hours on end and at times would last all of the night.

I have read that plenty of sleep is a good way at reducing levels of stress, the question is, how does one get to sleep in the first place?

When I did have the energy to socialise with family or friends, the fear of going to work would end up ruining the night and would stop me from enjoying myself. I felt sorry for the people I was with and hoped that I did not ruin their night as well.

For whatever reason I did not have the confidence to tell people about the problems I had and kept it bottled up to myself. This I now realise was a mistake and I have since learnt to talk about any issues that I have.<

For all the stress I had to endure, I certainly was not paid enough. The people who I worked with, including the team leaders, did not treat me with as much respect as I felt I deserved. This period was a very unhappy stage of my life and my health started to become affected.

I wanted to leave this company a lot earlier than the time that I eventually did, the problem was that I did not feel that I could afford to. I decided to save up enough money over a period of about six months so that I could then make my escape. At the same time I started to look at finding alternative work and thought long and hard about which career path I wanted to take.

On the day that I left this job, I will never forget my journey home. I could not stop smiling, I was so relieved that this nightmare was over once and for all.

I am happy to let you know that I have not found myself in a similar situation since. There may well be a time in the future of course when I do and if this ever happens to me again I am determined to leave a lot quicker than I did before. Life is to short to spend living in the way that I had.

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How to Meet that Special Someone

Chances are unless you are very lucky you will go thru many different relationships before you find your special someone. Finding your sole mate is like gambling. In poker and blackjack you may have to play dozens of hands until you get a winning hand, and it is the same with relationships.

During your life you will probably meet some people who seem like they may be the one, or that they are close, but still have the feeling that something else is missing. My advice is that if you are not happy, because something seems like it is missing, then it usually is not right.

Before I found my special someone, I was in a relationship for over 10 years, and I thought everything was great, until I started to seriously consider getting married. Then I noticed that we had so little in common and in reality wanted so many different things out of life and one day we both realized there was much about each of us that we both wanted from someone, but it was not us that we wanted.

Then one day I decided I had enough of trying to go to clubs and bars to meet people. I was sick and tired of trying to find someone in the time it takes to finish a drink. It always seemed the ladies I would meet were all wrong for me, or they seemed great after talking to them for 5 minutes but they seemed to have no interest in me.

Then one day I had an idea, it was not an original idea but I decided to use the internet to try to find the right person for me. So I proceeded to make a myspace profile. On this page I tried to put the real me and not the funny guy trying to be charming that was looking for love at the bar.

And as I would at the poker rooms I went all in, I poured my heart and sole into this. I wrote what I wanted and wrote down who I truly think I am and not who I want to be, and I was rewarded by 1 email responding to my site.

It was amazing; the response I got was like a dream. Imagine you are sitting in a Las Vegas casino playing poker. You are down to your last few dollars, you go all in and you wind up being dealt a Royal Flush, and suddenly the sky is bluer, the grass is greener, and all your worries seem to just fade away.

At first things were a little awkward for the both of us. We decided to hold of on actually meeting until we got to know each other first. We spent a month just talking everyday on the internet. You can really open up to someone and show them the real you and not have to worry about rejection on the internet, after all you are just a faceless ghost, and if things don't work out you could be sitting next to her on the bus one day without ever knowing it.

The key to finding happiness is realizing you are going to bust more then you are going to get blackjack, but you must keep trying, trying to remember you only need to find the real thing once.

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Secrets We Keep From Those We Love

Everyone keeps a few secrets from a husband or wife, boyfriend and girlfriend. And people keep their secrets for a lot of reasons. Often people are embarrassed or they are fearful of a partner's hostility or possible rejection.

And research shows that it is in one's best interest to keep some things private, especially when partners or spouses are likely to respond poorly to the truth. Being rejected, scorned, or stigmatized does not help any one work through a serious issue.

But, keeping secrets can also be harmful.

Keeping secrets often prevents people from dealing with the problem at hand. Keeping secrets leads to increased stress, anxiety, and it often makes people think about the issue (event or topic) more frequently.

For instance, people who have a secret crush on someone often dwell on their feelings more than people who are able to talk about their feelings out in the open. More often than not, keeping something secret makes it seem more important than it really is.

Likewise, revealing secrets is very helpful when it is done right; that is, in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Revealing secrets can reduce stress, it helps people let go of an issue and think about it more clearly.

If a secret is bothering you, it really does help to get it out - as long people don't respond negatively or use the information against you.

In fact, research shows that the simple task of writing down a secret, even if no one ever reads it, makes people feel better. Writing a secret down reduces stress - it is cathartic.

With this in mind, we have created a place where people can anonymously reveal the secrets they keep. Maybe you will find that letting go of one of your own secrets is helpful and not so embarrassing after all.

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The Funny Side Of Saying - I Love You

Love, the feeling that makes a person new and feel heavenly. Love, a feeling that changes life within a moment. Have we not heard of love at first sight? One who was happy go lucky in the morning, gets deep and dreamy looks in the eyes by the time the evening arrives. What happened? He/she fell in love during the day and now does not know what to do?

The very first response of such people is dreaming. They have dreams during the night and more often during the day. They lose all attention to their work and the only work left for them is to think of their latest sweetheart. Then begins the planning of where to meet again? How to spot that lovely person again? Through friends, or what? Depends on where the love was found at the first place. After getting few glimpses more, the love deepens and the dreams become more frequent. But at the same time, fear sets in. What if the other party refuses to reciprocate? What if the other one does not like me? So looks are given immediate attention. 'What if the other party is already in love with someone? That will be horrible. Let me not think of that at all. And if it comes to that, I will move heavens to win my love.'

And the final question. How do I say, I Love You? Shall I send a letter with flowers? Shall I send the message through some friend? Shall I meet and dare to tell across the table? How about sending an anonymous letter saying that so and so is madly in love with you. How about you? Shall I first ask for a date and get to become more friendly and then come up with my proposal? One keeps on thinking of so many alternatives and then suddenly one day, blurts out. Please I love you. How about you? And the response is - I also love you since I saw you for the first time, but did not know how to say?

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CCNP Certification - BSCI Exam Tutorial: EIGRP Stuck-In-Active Routes

Passing the BSCI exam and earning your CCNP is all about knowing the details, and when it comes to EIGRP SIA routes, there are plenty of details to know. A quick check in a search engine for "troubleshoot SIA" will bring up quite a few matches. Troubleshooting SIA routes is very challengin in that there's no one reason they occur.

View the EIGRP topology table with the show ip eigrp topology command, and you'll see a code next to every successor and feasible successor. A popular misconception is that we want these routes to have an "A" next to them - so they're active. That's what we want, right? Active routes sound good, right?

Well, they sound good, but they're not. If a route shows as Active in the EIGRP topology table, that means that DUAL is currently calculating that route, and it's currently unusable. When a route is Passive ("P), that means it's not being recalculated and it's a usable route.

Generally, a route shown as Active is going to be there for a very short period of time by the time you repeat the command, hopefully that Active route has gone Passive. Sometimes that doesn't happen, though, and the route becomes SIA - Stuck In Active.

A route becomes SIA when a query goes unanswered for so long that the neighbor relationship is reset. From experience, I can tell you that troubleshooting SIA routes is more of an art form than a science, but there are four main reasons a route becomes SIA:

The link is unidirectional, so the query can't possibly be answered.

The queried router's resources are unavailable, generally due to high CPU utilization.

The queried router's memory is corrupt or otherwise unable to allow the router to answer the query.

The link between the two routers is of low quality, allowing just enough packets through to keep the neighbor relationship intact, but not good enough to allow the replies through.

To sum it up, routes generally become SIA when a neighbor either doesn't answer a query, or either the query or reply took a wrong turn somewhere. I told you it wasn't the easiest thing to troubleshoot!

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Worship When You're Down

Sometimes we feel as if we have no energy to worship God. We are bombarded with work, families, sickness, stress, bills, etc…every single day. When do we have time to read the Bible let alone worship God? 

Some people have no will power, some have no desire to worship God, and others want to…but don't feel like they can. They are thinking to themselves, "What's the use? Nothing is going to change." They are sad about an event that has taken place or they simply have no room in their hearts to forgive someone. 

Guess what? Even when you don't think you have it in you to give your heart to God in worship, this is when you need to do it the most. When you are weak, He is strong. God gives you the strength when you need it the most. 

When you don't feel good in physical health or in spiritual healthand you praise Him and worship Him…you will find yourself in His glorious presence. And then you don't want to to stop praising and worshiping Him…it is like a drug. Then…afterwards, you don't feel the same as you did before you went into worship. Your whole outlook on life changes in that moment. 

Now, you may have to do this several times a day…but you can worship Him in the car, in the shower, wherever. And worshiping God does not necessarily mean singing to Him. You can pray, read His Word, meditate on His Word, etc… 

As the Nike commercial says, "Just do it!"

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What makes a Good Marriage "Good"

Most people get into a marriage with high and full spirits. They know fully well what they are getting into and accept this with an open heart. While you may say that there is a lot of hype in marriages especially on the days leading up to the wedding day, it can get a bit difficult to maintain this momentum.

There are many sad stories told about marriages dissolving because they had trouble maintaining the lives they had imagined they would have with each other. But everyday can't be a honeymoon. While there are indeed good marriages, there are also partners who eventually lose the heat.

Without questioning the devotion and love one partner feels for the other and vice versa, a couple may find their marriage at times to be monotonous and in a humdrum.

A good marriage should always be stimulating for both person involved and should make each other to look forward to another day with each other. It should provide a union that doesn't erase ones individuality.

Good marriages just doesn't happen, it's not just about love, devotion and compatibility. Both man and woman should work hard to make a marriage good and keep it that way.

Some tips on a Good Marriage

Be spontaneous and have different interests. It is always good to keep the other guessing. Do not have a predictable marriage that would make the union boring. Have different interests that you could share with your partner.

Be adventurous in the bedroom. Your sex life should be more than satisfactory. Experimenting is not a bad idea. Make your bed room romps something each one always looks forward to. Do not be critical with each other as well in making love. Learn to appreciate and communicate.

And never forget to have fun. Be a child with each other, remember the good times when you were just dating, try to impress one another and don't take each other for granted.

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