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Solving Stress & Work in Silicon Valley

"Stress makes us depressed, fat, sick - and we do it to ourselves"

This is great news! Now that we KNOW what's hurting people we can DO something about it!

... oh wait, that is easier said than done.

In the UK people use this expression, "I can't be assed" which means, basically, "I cant be bothered". Imagine ever saying that in an office? I never hear this expression over here but I hear it all the time when I travel abroad. I think this says a lot about how we deal with stress vs. the English. You have to have a certain amount of personal pride to just state your limits out loud. I love to compare ourselves with the UK. They also have a national health system, four plus weeks of vacation, and an extensive network of pubs.

I've found that most of my stress is caused by money, or other people. Usually stress comes from a cascade of people influencing other people with money mixed in. Work seems to cultivate this like a petri dish especially since technology has such an incestuous relationship with money. It's really difficult not to get stressed out in SV. I really really want to tell some of the stress causers (like disease carriers) NOT to inflict this toxic practice on other human beings. It sucks.

I don't think the Chronicle article delves into actual solutions for this problem. Doesn't everybody else see the solutions around them? or am I just simplistic? There is a solution for every problem, the trick is to find the right solution.

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