The Pros And Cons Of Stress

Stress is an all too familiar term and at some point in life, everyone has experienced it whether they want to admit it or not. Depending on the person it can consume a person for a minute, several minutes, maybe even hours. Throughout my life, my own experiences with stress were, with a few exceptions mostly academic related. Sometimes, it's hard to know where it came from, but I just know it's a reaction to something completely out of my control. Of all the times I could recall being stressed, the high school years were the most stressful.
***
Twelfth grade IB English class was one of the few classes in high school that stressed me out. For one thing, my teacher's name reminded me of Hell, even though it had more letters, making his name two syllables instead of one. To this day, in my opinion, it was the most unintentional fitting name for a teacher. Two, during the first semester, we'd be in groups of six to do a “socratic seminar,” in which in ten minutes, we'd three questions based on the nine questions we had to answer after doing a ten minute PowerPoint presentation about a topic based on the book we read.
December 12, 2012 was one of those days. Forty desks made a circle with a few being off from a so-called organized circle, making it crowded as students tried to get to a desk. As we sat down, students had to scoot over to make extra room.
This time, it was Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse. At that point, we've already done this with two other books and every time he'd call out a group number, there's always a person who sighed in relief because they didn't finish answering the questions. I sat at a desk next to my best friend and took out the supplies I needed: papers I answered the questions on.
“Group...” my teache...

... middle of paper ...

...ext year. I do not want to feel stressed out during my education nor do I want to fail.
Nonetheless, stress has been around since at least the ancient Greeks and Roman civilizations and will always exist whether humans like it or not. Instead of denying it via verbally or internally, we have to acknowledge it. To have a successful education or just in life in general, one has to realize they're flawed. It's impossible to strive for complete perfection, let alone succeed in many areas that aren't necessarily life skills. If there's one thing I learned throughout my life from difficult math tests among other situations, it's that stress, even ones stemming from academic pressure, shouldn't consume someone entirely. Sometimes, success doesn't bring happiness. So for now, I'll put on my purple headphones, find the first song I think of and let the melodies relieve me.