Don’t let stress get you down
By
Huge tests to take, portfolios due, essays and papers to write and books to read. All this and Christmas is right around the corner. We have to buy presents, shop, work hard and it is cold and the days are shorter and the nights longer. All of the computers in the labs are full and people are waiting on the outskirts, hoping they can have a chance to sit down and start working on their stuff. With just one week of school left before the semester ends, we all can get extremely stressed. It is important to remember now more so than ever in the semester to not let your stress level get out of control. Calm down. Breathe for a while. Eat something, talk to someone or go exercise. Whatever it is that makes you the most calm and relaxed, do it. Then you can go back to whatever test you were studying for and you will find it much easier to study. Without the specter of stress guiding us throughout our daily lives, we are more able to get quality work done. Everything you do does not have to be perfect. Do not fall into the never-ending hole of perfection; it will suck you in as if you were falling into a black hole so deep and so dark, you can never climb out again. If meditating is your thing do that, if family is your thing go see them. Go talk to your grandma for a while if you want to. Often during college we can only see the goal ahead, driving us to succeed and graduate. Then and only then will we take a break, but up until that point we are huge balls of stress walking around campus with scowls on our faces and hate for the world in our eyes. We see the stressed people everywhere - they are the ones who stole your seat at the computer and did not turn around to apologize. The stressed people are those who do not hold the door open for you at the Student Union Building. At lunch they have their heads buried in a laptop or a book and they aren't talking to anyone. We have all been to that place. Try not to go there again. There is much more to life than grades and however important your future seems right now, do not let the stress consume you. The path to your future is riddled with many bumps Sometimes we get so overwhelmed with those little glitches that we forget to enjoy the ride.
