Why are we stressed?

After spending more than two weeks looking for a used car, finally we got a four year old Toyota Corolla. It is a clean car with no dents or scratches. Searching for a good used car was a frustrating experience for several reasons -- each member of the family had different preference for the make, model, age and colour of the car. It was like forming a collation government. Even after we have bought the car, we keep thinking about other choices we had, and whether we made the best choice. What is a best choice? A few hundred dollars cheaper or having a little more appealing interior/exterior or little more reliable? I am sure that with some patience, I could have found the so called better car for less price, however, is it worth getting the stress? One of the reason we are always stressed is that we always want to be best and want to have the best. And not only the best, it should be better than what my friends or relatives have. In 1980, I used to listen to an advertisement for Super Rin detergent cake on Indian radio -- भला उसकी कमीज़ मेरी कमीज़ से सफ़ेद कैसे है ? (Why is his shirt whiter than mine?)

A few days ago, I read another story that nicely explains why we get the stress unnecessarily.

A few young people went to visit their college lecturer. The conversation moved in all directions including stress in the daily life. After some time, the lecturer went to the kitchen and prepared tea for them. He brought the tea in a teapot and lot of cups on tray. The cups that the lecturer brought were of different kinds -- fine china, porcelain, plastic, glass, etc. After all students had picked up a cup and filled it with tea, the lecturer said, "If you noticed, all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves, that is the source of problems and stress. What we wanted was tea, not the cup, but we unconsciously went for the better cups."

The lecturer further said, "Good tea may taste better in a good cup but a good cup does not make the tea better. Similarly, if Life is Tea, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold/maintain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. If we only concentrate on the cup, we won't have time to enjoy the Tea in it."