Stress

Yesterday was monumental. For the first time, maybe this whole year, I had the opportunity to spend an evening doing absolutely nothing. I had no homework and no activities. It should have been relaxing, it should have been fun, but it was still stressful. How can that be? Do we as young Americans really have so much stress that we are kept up at night, or nervous about absolutely nothing? Or maybe it is just me, but I have seen similar trials faced by peers, whether they are my friends, my acquaintances, or simply the celebrities I see facing so many evils in Hollywood.

Lindsay Lohan, a few years my senior, is a prime example of what stress can do to a person. The once innocent Disney sweetheart evolved into a media spectacle after car crashes, drunken nights, and a couple rehab stints. Now, I am not saying that my stress is comparable to that of her. Of course she has a few more pressures in life, but stress has similar effects for everyone. It runs you down, makes you desperate for an out, whether it be through drinking, over-eating, not eating, or smoking stress causes many of the problems facing America today. Not just young Americans, our elders face similar problems, but it is up to us to make the changes in our country now, which, ironically, is a stressor. Obviously the idea of stressors and stress is a nasty circle of frustration and anxiety.

I am not claiming to have the answers to the problems of stress, nor am I insinuating that stress is an inescapable evil. I am simply pointing out the fact that more and more people seem to be facing it, or at least facing it in a more public fashion. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and many more darlings of young Hollywood are a prime example of the nasty and bumpy road stress can take you down. Whether someone is famous or not, stress happens to everyone at some point or another. The test is not whether you get stressed or not, but how you deal with stress when it happens.