Dis-Stressing
Since I am committed to Improving My Perfections, it is probably not a surprise to you that I love Self-Help stuff.
Books, articles, TV shows. I want to learn the True Secret of Eternal Happiness, and I am sure someone must have found it, and would like to make money off of it. And I will give him some of mine (money, that is, not happiness).
And better yet, a lot of advice is FREE.
That’s wonderful because I don’t have to feel guilty when I don’t take it.
(And doesn’t it make you crazy when people ask your advice and then don’t take it? They’re called Ask-Holes.) (But not me, of course.)
The mecca of Self-Help articles is no longer late night TV infomercials. It is the internet. The internet is a veritable cornucopia of advice (I love that word – Cornucopia – and except for Thanksgiving, I almost never get a chance to use it).
For quite some time I thought that The Internet True Secret of Eternal Happiness had a lot to do with keeping your eyeshadow from creasing.
But then I found that I can get a lot of advice emails besides the ones Self.com.
And I found Huffpost Healthy Living.
I love The Huffington Post. Where else can you go for information on Syria’s chemical weapons and a video of a sloth hugging a cat? The latest Stonehenge theory and Gwyneth Paltrow’s fashion faux pas?
And Huffpost Healthy Living will send you frequent (meaning every thirty minutes) emails with all kinds of wonderful advices.
Even luckier, about 50% of these emails contain articles about reducing stress. Did you know that breathing reduces stress? (Yes, I thought you might.) Sleeping too. Huffpost believes in sleeping. I do too.
But now the bad news.
The other 50% of the articles tell me about all the things I am doing wrong. (I do sleep perfectly.)
For every stress-relieving email there is always a stress-inducing follow-up.
Like:
– The 8 germiest things in your kitchen (like a spatula)
– Ten things dirtier than a toilet (like a cell phone)
– The ugly truth about soup (like the sodium)
– Eight ways you’re messing up steak (like using a fork to turn it over)
Oh my God. I stuck a fork in my steak. And I ate soup. And I touched my cell phone. And my spatula has anthrax.
I am so stressed.
And if my anxiety isn’t high enough,
I got this email today:
“Seven French Toast Mistakes.”
Good thing that in less than one-half hour, I will get a stress-reduction email.
- Posted in: Aging ♦ Home ♦ Humor
- Tagged: Aging, Huffington Post, Humor, middle-aged, Self-Help, Stress, Stress management, stress reduction
notquiteold 
Noooooo! Don’t tell me there are seven wrong ways to make French toast! *curls into fetal position, whimpering*
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Yes SEVEN! And I’ve been screwing up on all of them – because I didn’t know French Toast was so tricky.
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Please let me know if you find the secret to eternal happiness o.k.? Maybe we could trade lists of all the things we are doing wrong! Another hilarious post. Love it!
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I am returning to the belief that eternal happiness is connected to keeping my eyeshadow from creasing.
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Yep. That’s # 1 on my list. But I found M.A.C. Nirvana.
Love the post. I’ve spent a fair amount of time today unsubscribing. But not from this blog, of course. Thanks for the laughs.
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I love the Huffington Post, too. And your sense of humor.
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Thanks. Yes, all the depth and trivia is one convenient place.
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Did you know that your blog now has ads? That stressed me out!
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I guess I am going to have to shell out the blog-extortion money.
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Enjoyed your post. lol. Huffington post sounds good, will have to check them out. If anyone’s needing some joy or inspiration check out my new blog!! It’s called Joy and inspiration lol 🙂 http://seventytwo722.wordpress.com/
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Oh no, I turned my French Toast with my spatula. Am I going to die?
Funny as always, this is the perfect place to start Monday morning.
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You will not die from turning your French Toast with a spatula, as long as you do touch your cell phone during the flipping. But whatever you do – DO NOT STICK A FORK IN YOUR STEAK!
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I made French toast this morning. Not sure if I committed the “seven deadly sins of French toast,” but it sure was yummy.
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I had NOOOOoooo idea I was doing so many things wrong. Now I have to go shopping to get out of this funk.
You kill me. Keep up the fabulous posting. Heh heh.
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“They’re call Ask-Holes. ” – cannot wait to share this with my husband. Folks like that irritate him to no end!
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Is one of the French Toast mistakes using a germy cell phone to flip it over?
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Number One. And by the way, I just read at the correspondents’ dinner, that Conan O’Brien was surprised that the Huffpost people were there. “Who’s covering the seven mistakes you’re making with bacon?”
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i wonder what speaker 7 said. or, using your cell phone as a plate for your french toast? and “askhole.” god, that is perfect. i am going to try and use that word tomorrow (and cite you as the source). and, also when i read these helpful healthy living tidbits my memory is so bad that i am stressed thinking, “JESUS – i just flipped the french toast with a fork………wait………is that germy or was it the spatula???”
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Don’t worry. As long as you didn’t touch your cell phone with the spatula you just used to flip your French toast, you’re OK.
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Huffington Post is great stuff. I signed up for lots of that stuff. It seemed my mailbox was constantly full with stuff from Huffington Post. I started to cull the stuff by deselecting some of the topics. More stuff came. Eventually I was stuffed on the stuff from Huffington Post and cancelled everything.
Now let’s breath.
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The dreaded Huff stuff. Damn.
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I didn’t know there were seven things that could go wrong with French toast. Although the chef that prepared the last one I ate seems to have done all of them.
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Actually, they are wrong. There are 10 things that could go wrong – and I’ve done every single one of them. Twice.
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