I’m a frog in a pot of hot water. To explain – there is an experiment that goes like this….put a frog into a pot of cold water and she swims happily about. Put the frog into a pot of boiling water and she leaps right out. Put a frog into a pot of cold water, and gradually heat the water, and the frog keeps swimming about in the pot as she doesn’t realise that she’s being cooked.
I’ve heard this experiment used to describe the stress in our lives. If you were thrown into a very stressful situation you would rightly run for your life but if that stressful situation gradually creeps up on you then you are like the frog in the simmering water; you have no idea that you are being cooked alive.
I recently realised that I’m that slowly cooking frog. The signs have been there for a while but I’ve been down playing them; saying to myself “This job isn’t stressful. My corporate law job in London, now THAT was stressful!” Now that I look back the signs are all too clear:
- Not sleeping well
- Taking ages to get out of bed in the morning
- Getting irritable very easily
- Craving sweet things (especially Kit Kat chunky bars!)
- Not wanting to be around other people
One day at the office everything came to a head. I won’t give you the details because I think repeating them just gives the negatives things more power. The result was that I realised that the stress had been building up for a while and I needed to take some swift action to reduce it back down again.
I would like to get out of the pot altogether and back to my lily pond. I might sometimes slip off my lily pad but at least I’m still in cool water.
I’m curious – have you been in the situation where you realised that the water was starting to get uncomfortably warm?
