Every job has stress. Some stress is due to the nature of the job, some stress we apply to ourselves, and some stress is caused by those around us, be it demanding bosses, unreasonable customers or unproductive and scheming co-workers.

Malcolm S. Forbes once said, “If you have a job without any aggravations, you don’t have a job.”

So if workplace stress is a given, then how we handle this stress has a large impact on how well we perform and how much we enjoy our job.

The fact is that living and working with others is not always easy. You don’t have to like the people you work with, but you do need to be able to co-exist and co-operate with them. You can start by remembering that everyone has their place and the more harmony you can bring to the situation the more enjoyable it will be for everyone.

Why not try bringing a little harmony to the workplace by imagining your job as being a member of a choir. In a choir some people sing too loud, others too softly and some out of tune, but we’re all still part of the same choir. If you sing louder to compete with the loud singers or sing so softly that you are not heard or sing out of tune just to fit in, then you do nothing to help the choir-you don’t add anything to the harmony.

You can’t change how another sings, you can only do the best that you can and hope that others follow your lead.

The Roman philosopher Sallust said, “Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay.”

Wise words, indeed. Whatever you do, don’t add to the disharmony, this will only make matters worse and drag the choir further out of tune.

Your performance should be based on how well you perform, and not the performance of others. The more harmony there is in a choir the better it sounds. The more harmony we can create at work the less stressful our job becomes. Don’t let someone else singing off key ruin your song.

Gary Mosher is co-author of the award-winning ‘Buddha in the Boardroom’, the book that shows you how to excel in today’s chaotic and stressful workplace environment, available from Bodhi Tree Publishing, LLC