I rarely experience much stress anymore. It just isn't worth it. The way to deal with it is relatively easy. What am I stressing out about? Not being able to deliver a project on time? What will the consequences be, worst case scenario? Even if a client gets extremely mad for me being late with a delivery, there's very likely a good reason for it that can be explained. If we lose the client over one minor infraction, then they might not have been worth working with from the beginning. Plus, relative to what is going on in the world and really the perspective of my entire life, is it really worth sweating about this one error? No.
Of course this is a very personal case and it's not always so black and white, but life is much more pleasant with stress out of the way. Think you'll be late for school/work? Whatever, you'll miss a class or work late to catch up for it. Miss your plane? There's always the next one. Miss a concert because you missed your plane? Well that's some absolute bad luck right there but just try to sell your concert tickets last minute and go home to eat a big bag of chips while watching a good movie. Travel stress and work stress are two things that I think should be avoided at all cost, simply because they are NOT very important in the grand scheme of things. You try your best, and sometimes everything in life seems to work against you. That's just the way it is, no reason to lose any sleep over it.
People in a less first-world scenario will have very different kinds of stress to deal with, but since I've always lived relatively comfortably I cannot compare my experiences to people who are in a very difficult situation. Therefore when I say it is relatively easy to deal with stress I am not trying to downplay anyone else's situation, which might be really shitty, sad, or terrifying. This is just how it is for a me, a white girl from a western country with a nice family and good education.
