Buckling Pavement - Good Metaphor for Stress

Dr. Jeff Long Executive Director, Chateau Girardeau Foundation

Friday on my way back to work at midday along Independence Street in Cape, a police car was parked with its lights flashing. No other vehicles were around, so it wasn't a traffic stop. In looking closer, the pavement had buckled in one spot, pushing upward and forming a small teepee in the roadway. A car hits that and damage is immediate to the suspension. When the temperature is consistently in the 90s, as it has been lately in Southeast Missouri, concrete expands and usually there is only one direction it can go - up. Everything seems fine and then one day, the road buckles. The same thing happens to people. Stress, if it is unrelieved, can be endured day after day and then there is what the health care industry calls "an event." This "event" can manifest itself in many ways - none of them good. If you see someone stressed, try to bring the temperature down - with your tone of voice, with an offer to listen, with a word of understanding. Your intervention, however brief, may stop a person from buckling. At least today.