Think of yourself being on a safari, and then you see a giraffe, a beautiful animal, slender, long neck, and it’s munching and chomping on some leaves.

 You’re looking and admiring this beautiful animal, and you’re thinking to yourself: “Wow! How care-free this animal looks! Doesn’t have a worry in this world?”

 And in all reality it is the truth because animals live in immediate response environments.

 Let me explain: Whenever the giraffe feels hungry, it goes by a tree and it starts chomping on the leaves, hunger goes away; when it hears a storm rumbling, it hears thunder, it witnesses lightning, it thinks it’s going to rain, it needs to find shelter, it goes finds shelter, it’s relieved.

 When it spots a predator, an animal that’s looking to hunt it, it immediately runs for safety.

But, as human beings, we live in delayed response environments. Today you are studying, you’re not going to see the results immediately, you need to get your degree and you still don’t know once you get your degree as to whether you would get a job; and even if you get a job, you don’t know as to whether you’ll be happy doing that particular job; and you don’t know as to whether you’ll be paid well; you don’t know how life will turn out to be; you don’t know as to whether you will buy yourself a house; and you don’t know as to whether you can afford the vehicle that you’re running in right now.

 You don’t know as to whether your business will run smoothly in this particular government or the next particular government.

 Delayed response.

And therefore, the stress factors are chronic; they’re not short-term.

 For the giraffe, it’s short-term.

Anxiety is a natural response, just like depression is a natural thing. You read about depression: when you’re going through certain worries, depression kicks in to numb your feelings, and it’s supposed to be short-term.

The minute it becomes long-term, then that’s when it becomes chronic depression. When you start feeling like you can’t feel anything: you don’t feel happiness, you don’t feel sadness, you’re like a zombie, then becomes problematic.

 Look at the example of a deer: the deer in the jungle sees a lion, anxiety kicks in, and you see the deer courting and running away; it startled and runs away… but once that deer moves out of the parameter, where the lion is going to attack, what do you notice that they are doing after that? Do you see the deer all stressed up and sitting in a corner, heart beating away, thinking the lion is going to eat it?

No. The deer goes to a corner and starts to graze like normal; and it goes on with its life. It doesn’t have chronic anxiety, where it’s constantly on pins and needles. The next time it spots another predator, again it runs, it goes to a safe haven, it goes back to its calm state.

 And this is how we’re supposed to be, but we aren’t that. We are constantly filled with anxious thoughts. We’re always on pins and needles.