Pressurized

Life can be like a pressure cooker. The valves to release the pressure are turned too tight. And all anyone sees is the gauge at the top starting to point itself at maximum capacity. What has you at maximum capacity? Where is your gauge at? You may be oblivious to what it reads, but everyone else sees it, so where are you at?

After I was married for a few years (I was married at age 21), I started to feel the pressure of life. Knowing it was time to grow up was not easy at such a young age. I was a young man with a pretty good job, a wife and eyes set on the future. The only problem was my personality kepping me wound too tight like the knobs on a pressure cooker.

However, I thought everything was okay, but instead I was leaving a path of destruction behind me. My gauge was pinned at maximum; nonetheless, I couldn’t see it, but everyone else could and avoided me as much as possible. I was pressurized and ready to blow!

At what point are we the pressure cooker? What is everyone else reading on our gauge and we are not? After many years of trying operate like this, I learned some tools to help drop the pressure and to release the valves on myself.

• Have someone who can speak into your life honestly and want what is best for you so you won’t blow up on them (hopefully).
• The only thing I can control in life is me, so give up on trying to control others.
• You don’t like what you see in the mirror, then do something about it.
• Be completely and absolutely sold out for God. Let God define who you are, not others. Others may want you to be something you are not meant. That alone will raise the pressure in the cooker.
• Laugh. Laugh at yourself, laugh with others and this will be huge in relieving the pressure.

I could go on and on. However, it is up to you if you are going to be the pressurized person who people like but cannot trust. What are some ways you relieve the pressures of life? What do you do when you are pressurized and ready to blow up?