I happened to watch a lecture hosted by Wong Jim and Chua Lam on the Internet. It was held in 1999 and the title was "How to Reduce Stress and Enjoy Life". Back then, you had to pay for admission, but now you can watch it online for free, so let’s talk about stress today. 

Hong Kong people are stresses. According to the State of the Global Workplace：2022 Report by the survey agency, Gallup, as many as 53% of Hong Kong citizens feel stressed every day, which is one level higher than the global average of 44%. Only 6% of people in Hong Kong are engaged, which is really pitiful. 

To reduce Stress, Chua Lam suggested that the method is not to think. Yes, just don't think about it. He believes that pressure must exist. As long as you are at a lower level, there will be pressure. The way to eliminate stress is to eradicate superiors, until you have no superiors. There is no such thing as pressure, but this is impossible in reality. However, stress does not mean pain. He pointed out that all pain is imaginary. If you don't think, there will be no pressure. He continued to point out that there are many things to do in life, and you can choose to spend your time on different interests. You can go to exercise, you can arrange flowers, you can even find a sexual partner, just don't spend time imagining the pain of stress. 

The audience is obviously dissatisfied on Chua Lam’s answer. A female audience asked, how does a woman from a good family find a sexual partner. Chua Lam replied that as long as she is willing to take appropriate actions to look for it, she will definitely find it. If she just thinks about it, she will not find it. Another male audience said that Chua Lam 's method could not solve the actual stress of life and financial pressure. Chua Lam said that it is unavoidable if money is involved, and one must work very hard to make money. 

At this time, Wong Jim couldn't help but speak out and shared his experience. He had owed huge sums of money due to investment failures. At that time, he could only accept any jobs, otherwise he would not make level-three films. Therefore, he fully agrees with Chua Lam 's views that you can only use your best to overcome it when you have financial pressure. 

I believe that some people cannot accept with such content. They will feel that the speaker is talking nonsense and they don't understand the hard work of the low-income people. But what I see from my point of view is the problem of cultivation. Perhaps the causal relationship is reversed. It is precisely because people cannot understand the meaning of it that they cannot get out of the pressure. 

From the speeches of the two predecessors, we know that some pressures are imagined, while others must be faced positively. To deal with stress, the focus is on mentality. If our mentality is to seek externally, it will be easy to blame external objects for problems, and then accuse society of injustice, and even become cynical.

As long as our mentality is seeking inwardly, we can take responsibility and fulfill our responsibilities. This is the way we gradually learn to deal with stress. There is no perfect system in the world, and we cannot change the system. We can only adapt and try to learn how to live in the system. 

We all understand that hard work does not mean success. We will always encounter jobs that are beyond our abilities, and there will always be times when we want to escape. It's hard to get away without enough cultivation, it's not like you can't think about it if you don't want to. Since it is difficult not to think, my method is to try to think useful. 

I am used to dividing problems into controllable and uncontrollable. The uncontrollable part comes from the outside or what has happened. It cannot be changed by personal ability, so try not to think about it. The controllable part is what we can prepare, try our best to think, focus on what we can do, and do what we need to do. In this way, even if things develop in the worst direction and you have done your duty, this can at least reduce stress levels to acceptable ones.

Simon So

Head of Digital Marketing