The young and the stressless
“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness” — Richard Carlson
Some days I feel like Carlson hit the nail right on the head with that quote. Stress is something that never seems to be in short supply these days.
Classes, homework, jobs, deadlines, hanging with friends, the list goes on and on. They all seem to bog down the week.
What ever happened to plain old stress-free fun?
I drove past a playground a couple of days ago on my way to work, and noticed all the children running around and having fun.
Memories of my younger years started to come back to me. Those were the days when the biggest problem you had was whether you had to sit next to smelly girl in class or whether your outfit was socially acceptable enough to fit into the “cool” group.
Ah yes, the good ol’ days. We take them for granted and wish to be older, and now the tables are turned and everyone wishes to have youth back.
I would give anything to have back the days when I watched cartoons, played with my Barbies and got as dirty as I possibly could all day long.
Some people handle stress like it’s a day in the park. I unfortunately am not one of those people. A few things go wrong, and in a matter of minutes I’m running around in a tizzy pulling my hair out. My parents, on the other hand, are the exact opposite.
Throughout my beginning years, I can’t remember a single time when I could visibly see something was worrying them. I can’t imagine that life was too easy with two extremely active children, running errands and, at some points, managing three jobs on outrageous hours.
They were always telling me everything was going to be OK and reassuring me that everything happens for a reason. They both were always pinnacles of strength for me, and I admire them for that to this day.
Obtaining even half their stress level would be wonderful. I’ve tried a number of things to help but nothing has proven useful thus far.
Those stupid squishy balls people tell you to squeeze whenever your stressed don’t really do the trick for me. Donating plasma is about the only thing they’re useful for.
I usually end up using one of the 20 habits I’ve developed over the years. Biting my nails probably would be considered the worst of my habits. As a dedicated nail biter since I was a little girl, I feel like it’s the only thing that helps.
I think everyone has a habit they depend on during high stress. Chronic foot-tapping, fidgeting and hair-twirling are just a few examples. Luckily, I have amazing family and friends who help me cope with all the stress.
The important thing is that if all else fails, just do the best you can, and once the worst is over, whatever it was that was stressful doesn’t actually seem so bad.