In this brief monologue, Jake Burhans argues that the conventional approach to stress—trying to eliminate external stressors—is futile. Instead, he advocates focusing on strengthening one's internal capacity to handle stress. By consistently doing internal work, individuals can build resilience to the point where external events no longer disrupt their chosen state of being, achieving what he calls "true internal freedom."
If you want to be less stressed, you have to upgrade your internal capacity to deal with stress. Stop trying to eliminate external stressors. That's literally never going to happen. The more that you do the internal work, the more you increase your capacity to deal with the external stressors. Soon you've built so much capacity that nothing externally can knock you out. And at that point, you've gained true internal freedom. Nothing externally can knock you out of the state of being that you chose to be in.
