Stress Today

People might be much more happy if they could avoid the stress

That’s become a part of living, though there should be less and less,

For today we’re so much richer; food is plentiful and cheap;

Housing, too, is so much better, though rents can be rather steep.

Illness now is not the worry that it could be in the past,

When the cost of any treatment for the poor could be too vast.

Unemployment’s not the problem that it always used to be –

It’s a source of stress and worry of which people now are free.

But today much stress arises not from economic need,

But the pace of life in general and the pressure to succeed,

Which today in many people has a very bad effect,

Making them so much less happy than at first one might expect.