Evan Lanning

“It is this need to be in control, particularly of the uncontrollable, that seems to fuel stress and the illness it causes in those affected by this affliction. It’s as if life were a bus tour. This person can’t just sit back and enjoy the ride. Instead he has to leap up, push aside the driver, and take over the controls. Sadly, if you do this, you won’t experience any of the interesting scenery, because you’re so busy steering the bus. Life is a lot less interesting if you’re trying to control it all the time.”
― Tim Cantopher, Overcoming Stress: Advice for People Who Give Too Much

“There is also some evidence that, even if you have cancer, the level of stress you are suffering (of course, the disease is enough stress in itself) can influence the body’s ability to fight off the disease, to survive it and to tolerate the necessary treatment.”
― Tim Cantopher, Overcoming Stress: Advice for People Who Give Too Much

“I need to acknowledge the obvious: some people have such terrible and intractable adversity in their lives that there is nothing that I can write that will make things OK. I know that, but I can say this: I see far more people whose stress is at least to some degree chosen, than those for whom there are no answers. It may be worth reading on unless you are absolutely sure that your stress is 100 percent external, that you play no part in it and have no influence at all upon it. And in any case, have you really ever cared enough about yourself to think about running at a pace that you can comfortably and healthily sustain? I doubt it. If you haven’t ever given it a thought, because you don’t matter as much as others, you need the rest of this book.”
― Tim Cantopher, Overcoming Stress: Advice for People Who Give Too Much

“She knew how to hit to a hair’s-breadth that moment of evening when the light and the darkness are so evenly balanced that the constraint of day and the suspense of night neutralize each other, leaving absolute mental liberty. It is then that the plight of being alive becomes attenuated to its least possible dimensions. She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind — or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.”
― Thomas Hardy, Complete Works of Thomas Hardy