Life Under Pressure

In America parents and educational systems indoctrinate children ,from a very young age, with what they would like them to become and society supports the parents with the pressure to make successful children. Society pressures children way too much and it causes stress that should be avoided. In other words we as children are raised to believe that we are nothing if we are not everything. Either you already agree or you need some persuasion, either way here’s an invitation to the inside of the pressure. Story time!

At 3:11 a.m. a young woman becomes a mother and her and her mate, who waits by the bed side, meet their beautiful baby for the first time. In that moment, before the baby even opens their eyes, the parents have already decided that they were staring at the future president of the United States. By the time the child was two, and had bumped their head a little the parents had already come to the conclusion that the classical music at bed time since birth, the extra organic baby food, mommy and me yoga classes, and My One Year Old Can Read programs were not enough. The parents are appalled that by age two their child hasn’t found the cure for cancer yet so they deny the realities of humanity and throw their child into preschool and extracurricular activities and declare the pressure of having to prepare for college at age four. From then on the pressure builds up like a tumbleweed in a never ending Sahara. Tag teamed training begins and the beautiful baby becomes an opportunity to be better than the parents ever were.

Clearly that story was not specific but it is the case for many American families and children experience these pressures at home, in school, and everywhere in between. We are trained to establish a polished look, nice body size, high intellect, popularity and somehow remain an angel through it all. Schools train their students to conform to the requirements of standardized tests and then encourage them to be college ready. Can you really be ready for college if your years of training were focused on bubbling in the right answers? The pressures of becoming the adult we “should” be don’t line up with the adults we are set up to become.

Think back to the five year old you. Mom, dad and, Ms. Brown (insert other common teacher name) all had high hopes for your future and made you believe that the pressure was derived from your own hopes and dreams. Clearly all five year old children would choose to be doctors or engineers to ensure an established 401K by age 50. Am I right? Not even by a long-shot. The pressure comes from around you to think beyond reality and then try to achieve it. These pressures age with you but so does your awareness and then you realize you fall short. You’re still successful, just not Nobel-Peace-Prize successful. Not yet at least. We as Americans do not have to crack under the pressures, we have to balance them with the realities of life. We must let our successes be a product of our power regardless of our pressure.