Apparently
Chicago is the nation's most stressful city. Among the reasons cited:
Factor in two Major League Baseball teams in the playoff hunt, an NFL team with a bevy of unanswered questions and one can begin to understand how Chicagoans could be a bit more stressed than the average metropolitan citizen.
If baseball is a factor, I'd guess that Milwaukee, New York, and Phoenix rate pretty high too. Not baseball, but this was interesting:
Also cracking the top five in the country's most stressful cities were San Francisco, Los Angeles, Detroit and New York.
Have the people behind this study
been to San Francisco or Los Angeles? I got stressed in those towns a couple of times and I was cited by police officers for harshing the communal buzz.
4 comments:
So I guess that means my life is less stressful than my fellow Chicagoans, since I loathe all of the sports teams here. Although, the DBacks collapse probably bridges the gap pretty easily.
If Forbes magazine truly believes that having baseball teams in a playoff chase are stressor in the same way that unemployment levels, work/life balances, commuting in and out of one of the biggest US cities, and issues of self-imposed conspicious consumption they really had a bad day in defining what variables are true indicators of real stress. Kind of surprised they didn't include other well known stressors such as worrying about why Chicago is called Second City, if Top Chef Chicago represented the city well, and do people really prefer thin crust pizza over deep dish.
For folks who find the stress of rooting for/following their favorite baseball team (any team) on the same level of concern equal to some of life's bigger challenges I think it's time to seek some counseling as priorities may be just a wee bit misplaced. I'm a die hard baseball fan (hence one reason I visit this site) and read about the Red Sox just about every day but only to serve as a distraction to the stressors in my life. The Red Sox serve as one of my respites in life and if following them ever becomes a stressor I need to seek some help. I guess my self-esteem is high enough that I do not need to live vicariously through the win-lose record of the Sox, Pats or Buckeyes.
Seriously folks - do people truly believe that following a sports tema is a strssor? Am I the one that is out of touch? If so let me know and I'll go get my Wally, Patty, and Brutus tattoos to feel better about myself.
I know this study had to do with sports, but the characterization of LA or SoCal in general as laid back is a little bit off. People work a LOT here. Boston fans criticized Laker fans for showing up late to games (and the Angels have gotten that before as well), and some of it of course is people being "fashionably late" for whatever reason, but a lot of it is that most people work 9 or 10 hour days and can't get off early enough to be on time to a 7pm start when you factor in the traffic.
Anyway, just my two cents. Of course you've got exceptions to any rule, and there are laid back sectors of this community, but there are a lot more people around here who work a lot of the time.
Between the lack of growth in the city's industry and economy over the past decade, cheesesteaks, and combined century of not winning a championship, how is Philadelphia NOT at the top of the list????
And relax, mooseinohio, you're stressin' me out . . .
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