Hong Kong (1/28): Seven and Heaven

There was a study (well, there have been many, I'm sure) about the leading causes of stress.  One article I found outlines the seven leading causes of stress (out of a total of 55 identified causes) and I came to realize that over the past week I've covered almost the entire list.

It's been pretty intense.  Things have happened on multiple fronts causing all sorts of havoc on my health, life and work.  Here is the breakdown (in no particular order):

Work - The #2 Cause of Stress

I've been trying to get things moving on a project I'm in charge fo here for AnD.  It's a movie site for a film being shot here in Hong Kong and without getting too much in to the specifics (because there is no point explaining it all) I've had to work multiple all-nighters over the past week.  Two nights I stayed at the office until 6:00 a.m., a couple until after midnight, and even when I worked from home, I was still working until at least 3:00 or 4:00.  Even today it's Sunday evening and I'm at the office at 3:00 a.m.

Lots of meetings, lots of tedious work, and lots of trying to figure stuff out that I'm rusty at because it's been a while since I've done a site from the ground up.  (And it's not even a super hard site either .. It just takes a while, is all) And with the exception of some stuff Stephen is helping with, it's kind of all on me to get this done.  In any case, that's been stressor number one.

Moving - "Personal Concerns" (a lack of control over one's life) is the #4 Cause of Stress

In just 5 days I will be moving in to my new apartment.  As any pop psychologist Dr. Phil Wannabe will tell you, moving is one of the biggest stressors you can have in your life.  And although I don't really plan it, I seem to keep moving each year whether I wanted to or not.  This time around I'm hoping to stay in my new apartment for longer than 12 months (fingers crossed) but just the thought of moving again after only a year is sort of uggggghh, y'know?

So, I've started packing, but with all the work I have going on I haven't had much time to do that.  Which is annoying, because due to many factors, I really only have about 40 hours to manually move all my stuff.  I will be bringing several pieces of luggage to my office over the week as a temporary storage before the move, but even then I'm going to be super busy over the weekend.  So, stressor number two.

Money - the #1 Cause of Stress

As a result of having to pay out a nice chunk of money for the deposit on my new apartment (in HK you have to pay 3 months (2 for deposit, 1 for rent) plus 1/2 month to the agency and a government tax fee), and since I won't be getting the deposit on my old place back until after I've moved out, I have about 2 weeks where I'm super broke.

A friend was kind enough to loan me a few bucks to tie me over until payday, but even that is sort of stressful because I really hate borrowing or owing money.  So, of course being broke, coupled with the stress of feeling bad about borrowing money equals lots more stress.  Yay!

Although I suppose the relief of being able to pay for things for the week alleviates some of the other stress in my life, it kind of ends up being a lesser-of-two-evils sort of things.

Family - The #3 Cause of Stress

I'll be honest -- I don't have that much stress related to my family.  They're all good peoples.  However, there are a lot of things going on right now (that I'm not at liberty to talk about yet) that have got the stress-o-meter a little higher than usual. 

Also, My father will be visiting me next month.  I'm actually looking forward to that, but at the same time, making sure that everything will be okay for his visit and taking care of things so that I can be sure to spend time with him, while not a "bad" stress, is still a little bit of a concern in the back of my mind. 

I'm not one to say that hanging out with my family is stressful, but then ... it's probably more stressful than sitting at home eating a grilled cheese sandwich.  It's all relative, right?

Plus, I don't see them all that often, so I sometimes worry about whether they're doing okay.

Personal Relationships - The #6 Cause of Stress.

Contrary to the running-lie that Pat likes to perpetuate as a joke, I have no "romantic" relationships in my life right now.  I have some friends I hang out with from time to time, and I have the guys here at work that I see at the office (and occasionally outside the office), but I've found as I've become older, that I really like spending time by myself.

I actually wrote a bunch of stuff about the reasons for that, but I'm going to save that for another blog.  In any case, I really don't have much stress related to relationships (at least none that I can do anything about) but if I didn't list out all 7 of the things on the list you guys would have complained that I wasn't being thorough.

Health and Saffety - The #5 Cause of Stress

As a result of all the work, all the stress and all the other stuff, I got really sick this week.  It started Tuesday night during one of my late night's at the office and it just got worse and worse as I kept having to do all-nighters.  The last 2 days of the week I worked from home, both to get some more rest and to avoid passing this on to anyone else.

I've found the quickest way for me to work a bug out of my system (which, btw, always seems to go from throat to nose to head, without fail) is to follow my body's natural inclinations.  I worked from home, but I let my body sleep whenever it wanted to.  If it wanted a nap, I gave it one .. if it woke up, I started working again.  I ended up working pretty much as many hours as I would have otherwise, but by listening to my body's needs and giving it rest when it wants it, instead of when I can afford it, let my body heal up faster from this cold/flu than most of the ones I've ever gotten. 

From now on, whenever I get sick, I'm going to do this.  It allows me to keep working as m uch I would have but

I think the main reason is that I tend to get annoyed with people really easily.  There are some people I'm exposed to that so totally rub me the wrong way that I have serious inclinations towards causing them bodily harm.  (Which I would never do, of course)  I think it's the feeling that they have a really whacked out perspective on things, and it's hard to get over their lack of common courtesy or generally immorality.  And being annoyed is annoying and stressful in itself, so I tend to prefer solitude over attitude.   

The other reason is that I really don't like making small talk or being in situations where I'm forced to keep a conversation going when the only thing I really want to do is go home and lie in bed.  Some people are naturally good at socializing, but for me, if you're not a close friend of mine or someone who's company I enjoy, it takes a while for me to warm up to you and I'd just as soon spend that time on the treadmill. 

Maybe I'm anti-social .. but it's more like anti-fake.  I prefer to be pro-quality, and I'm one of those people who would rather develop really strong friendships and bonds with 2 or 3 people, than be nice acquaintences with a couple dozen people.  I don't need public adoration or (in some people's case) public envy -- I just need to have a couple people that I trust to know the real me.