How to cope with stress?

Acharya Prashant

5 min readNov 12, 2020

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: Acharya Ji, how to cope with stress? I get disappointed easily. Why is it so?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Is there disappointment without a specific expectation?

Listeners (L): No.

AP: And when you expect, then obviously you never expect bad things for yourself. Or do you?

L: No.

AP: So when you expect, you expect good things to happen to you — “Good things will happen to me.” Now, just think of the good things that really happen to you or have happened to you; the really good things, not the small ones. I repeat, the really good ones. Have they happened to you because of your expectation and imagination?

Alright, let’s look at those good things. The first thing you probably like about yourself is — that you are, your being, the fact that you exist. Did that happen out of your expectation?

L: No.

AP: It didn’t, right? Now, these essentials that you need for living, do they come to you because you expect them to come? And could you ever have expected them to come?

L: Some things in my life come when I expect them to come, and some things come when I don’t.

AP: Whatever you expect to come, you expect it to come because you have some idea of it. For example, you plant a flower, and then you expect it to blossom because you have seen it blossom earlier. But do plants blossom because you expect them to blossom? They don’t, right?

And the world is full of such beauties.

The Sun rises every day and nice air has been provided to you. And the air has a particular composition which is perfect to be inhaled. These things are not happening to you because of your expectation. Even right now as you are listening to me, it is obvious on your face that you can connect and you can understand. Did you really expect this to happen? Do you even have the time to expect, as we are talking? It is just happening. It is just happening on its own.

So, some really nice things are happening to you without your expectation.