Do we really have a choice?

This evening over dinner, we started talking about Steve Jobs. There was curiousity about the "homonal imbalance" that he has been experiencing that is "robbing his body of protein" making him razor thin.

The conclusion was that he has a relapse of pancreatic cancer and his earlier surgery probably had a role in his "homonal imbalance".

The conversation then went on to cancer. A remark came that "all these cancer is all due to stress. Stress weakens the immune system and the body loses the ability to rid itself of malignant cells which eventually leads to cancer." It was obvious that the table was quiet for a while pondering over the statement until I added, "...No Choice, stress is unavoidable...".

Do we really have a choice regarding stress in our lives? Or is it unavoidable?

The philosophical argument is all of us have a choice in anything and everything. Steve Jobs chose to be CEO of APPLE and that probably stressed him. He could choose not to be CEO of APPLE and forgo that stress - really? He probably wants badly and passionately to be CEO of APPLE and not being CEO of APPLE will stress him out, probably much so during the time that when he was ousted by the APPLE board. If Steve Jobs did not choose to be CEO of APPLE, the world will also miss out on the marvelous products that they produce.

Th reality is that sometimes our passion will cause stress to ourselves. We want to do well in what we are passionate about and can underestimate how this can inflict the level of stress on ourselves.. What is can probably control is the degree of our stress. The more we learn to "let go", the lower our stress. There is a time and season for everything. Something that cannot be done in a season can be easily done in the next season. Don't be too hard on ourselves. We can control our stress but cannot probably totally eliminate it because of the human-ness in us.

I guess we do have a choice on how stress will affect us but have lesser control over whether we can totally eliminate stress or not. What do you think?