Can you turn stress to your advantage?

Yes! Exercise, taking deep breaths, and one more idea are presented here by Elisabeth Cox in a TED Talk.

Stress and music

Ann Voskamp is thinking about stress...and music.

Music is made in stress. A string has to be stressed, it has to be pulled tight, to make music.
Music is made in stress. A string has to be stressed, it has to be pulled tight, to make music.
The string has to be moved from it’s comfortable, resting position if it’s ever going to be make music.

The bending of the string, this induces stress. And as the string bends, as the string arches in stress, and then releases, it vibrates — and there is the practiced offering.

This one clear note, high and long.
When you’re like a guitar — empty and stretched taut and strings stressed tight — you’re the perfect space to be made a song.

In stress, there can be song.

The days we feel stressed, the days we feel empty — these are our Guitar Days. These are the days that could make music.

The resonance of sound is always in the surrender.

Read more here.

"A politician for whom adoration and money are ultimate objectives rather than welcome byproducts of success probably doesn't belong in the White House."

Hillary Clinton's friend Tina Brown doesn't think Hillary should run for the presidency in 2016. She contrasts the presidency with the post-presidency Hillary and Bill are already enjoying.

Being president you may have more power than anyone else in the country, but you quickly discover that you have much, much less than you thought you'd have going in. You're hamstrung in ways you never dreamed of. That's truer now than it's ever been. It's not that you can't get anything done. It's that what you can get done is so paltry compared to what you wanted and expected to get done. You are doomed to disappoint the people who elected you. You'll disappoint yourself. And that's only the tip of the iceberg of stress that awaits you.

By contrast, writes James Taranto,

"the post-presidency . . . is a win-win. Money, Nobels, the ability to leverage your global celebrity for any cause or hobbyhorse you wish, plus freedom to grab the mike whenever the urge takes you without any terminal repercussions." Brown thinks Messrs. Carter and Clinton have made the most of the opportunity, and while she's disdainful of the Bushes' "parachute jumping" and "painting," she allows that they "have seemed happier out from under" the burdens of the presidency.

Here is Brown, making the case against President Hillary Clinton: "She is as adored as any ex-president already, she is making a ton of money, and she can expand the real passion of her life," the aforementioned global mission to advance women.

All of which amounts to a very strong case against Mrs. Clinton's running--a stronger case, perhaps, than Brown realizes. A politician for whom adoration and money are ultimate objectives rather than welcome byproducts of success probably doesn't belong in the White House.

Read more here.