During the first run of working at my current job ( which lasted about five years ), I would often let the prospect of working there loom over me like some sort of giant, forboding omen that was sure to bring me down on so many different levels. This time around however, it seems like its not that way. I guess I'm able to compartmentalize the whole business, and put the thing behind me when I'm not there. These days I'm making a point to handle stress differently than I have in the past. For example, I'm starting to handle stress period.

I've heard of scientific studies that have proven that people trying to multitask have brains that show signs of "rot". Well, I think any kind of stress does this. I work with a multude of burnouts and dead-enders at my workplace, and not all of them are that way because they indulged in mind altering substances when they were younger. No, I'm convinced that at least part of the reason why their brains are so pickled is that they never learned how to deal with modern life.

Modern life, so different from the evolutionary process that molded us, is killing us in the most horrific way: by slowly taking away our mental faculties. I'm not advocating a disbanding of society. I'm just saying that the human mind was built for short term stressors, not the periods of terror lasting days, months and years that society subjects us to.

Hunter S. Thompson said it best in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: We're all wired into a survival trip now.
He was talking about the aftermath of the drug revolution in the 60's, but he could just as well be describing the mind-bending effects of long term exposure to other human beings.