Pressure: Friend or Foe
Pressure: Friend or foe?
Like everyone else, I dread the sleep murdering sound of my stupid alarm clock. Unlike most people, mine goes off at 4am, when the sky is still black, and full of stars. It’s basically the middle of the night. I roll out of bed, turn the aggravating sound off, and put on my bathing suit. Yep, my bathing suit. At Brewster High School, we don’t have a pool, so we need to use the pool at the only available place in the area, Green Chimneys. Of course, the only available time for us to swim there is at 5am. So, I drag myself out the door, into a freezing car and get on the road to practice. My team and I dive into the freezing pool at 5am. From 5 to 6:30, we swim lap after lap, sprint after sprint. At 6:30, I get out of the water, exhausted and rush to the locker room to get one of the six existing showers there. I’m part of a 20 girl team, who must share 6 showers, and two mirrors. You can imagine how that goes. By 7:10, I’m out the door and on the way to school. By this point in the day (actually morning), I feel drained of all energy and don’t want to go anywhere. But of course I still have a long day ahead of me. This is my fun, everyday morning.
At 7:20 I arrive at school, and walk through the drowsy hallways to my locker, grab my books and make my way to AP Biology. Nothing against anyone who enjoys any kind of science, but it’s not exactly my favorite subject…at all. The struggle to keep my eyes open and my head up is extremely challenging. The day continues for 6 more dragged out hours, as I continue to fight the urge to put my heavy head down, and just fall asleep. I drag my tired self to class after class and by the end of the day all energy is gone. I take the bus home, which takes about an hour to make it to my house, despite the fact that I live about 7 minutes away.
I get home at around 3:15, put my books down, and immediately bike down the road to my neighbor’s house. I get their two kids off the bus, and babysit the two of them until their dad gets home at 5. They are a pretty rowdy couple of kids. Constantly running around, hitting each other with giant sticks they find lying around the yard, climbing on the monkey bars, and of course the occasional temper tantrum. I finish my job, bike home, sit down and start my SAT homework.
This is usually the most stressful part of my day. Not because the homework is too hard, but because I need to pack additional hours into supplemental study for the favorite test of all juniors… the SAT. The SAT is a big, long test that many view as being an integral part of your future. The SAT has a major impact on what college you can get into, which, in turn, influences what job you can get after you graduate. There are three sections on the SAT; writing, reading, and math. Every night I work on all three sections, and then study the vocabulary. I usually spend close to three hours studying for the SAT. Which means I finish this at around 8 pm. Not only have I not even started my assigned homework, but I’ve also been awake for 16 hours straight, without much of a break at all.
After SAT work is complete, I move onto the homework assigned by my school teachers. Since this is “the big junior year” and this is the “year that matters most,” (a common theme that has been drilled into my head by other students and even teachers) I’ve put myself into three AP courses, and three advanced classes, which is pretty challenging to handle. With these advanced classes come a lot of work, and even more studying. I get a decent amount of homework to do each night, in each class. To complete it all, and to complete it well, the homework usually takes me about 3 and a half to 4 hours to do.
Homework ends, and it’s around 11:30pm. I have swim again the next morning, which means I need to pack my bag for swim and school the next day. This takes me about 15–20 minutes. I brush my teeth, wash my face, and get into bed at 11:30–11:45. I fall asleep at 12ish, and yet again am woken up at 4 by that ear piercing, stupid alarm clock, and the day starts all over again. I’m constantly running on 5, sometimes 4 hours of sleep.
Ever since I started high school, I’ve been told all about the “big”, “important” junior year. College applications, SATs, Varsity sports, keeping a high GPA, AP courses, and hours and hours of homework. So far, it’s living up to its promises. College is hanging over my head, along with the SAT scores that I need to be accepted into the schools I am considering. Varsity sports are physically draining, and intense. Keeping my GPA at the required number to achieve high honor roll takes a lot of time and effort, and getting high grades in AP courses seems impossible at times. Homework this year, as I stated earlier is overwhelming to say the least.
I’ve learned a lot these past few months about things that can help me in life, like focus, effective time management, and priorities, etc. However, one thing that has become abundantly clear is that often times success and failure is determined by one overriding factor… how you deal with pressure. The dictionary defines pressure as;
“Pressure: the burden of physical or mental distress.”
It’s obvious that people who can handle stress well are more successful than those who can’t. To deal with pressure you must start by figuring out where it originates. The simple answer to this is within yourself. Pressure and stress come from expectations you hold for yourself. For example, when you feel pressure to do well on a test, it is because you have an expectation of yourself to get a good grade. You feel pressured to achieve a high standard you hold for yourself. Another example of this is pressure to play well in a game. This pressure comes from an expectation you feel you should be able to meet. You have an expectation of how you should play, and therefore you feel pressure to perform as well as you expect yourself to. While these expectations are often self-established, there are clearly others whose expectations impact the pressure you feel- friends, teachers, family members. Etc. However, I have always felt that my pressures come from within, and dealing with it has been the thing I have learned the most about this year.
The ability to make pressure your friend, and not your foe can help to make you successful, even with the busiest of schedules. When pressure is your friend, and is handled right, it keeps you focused on reaching the goal and controlling the stress. A busy, demanding schedule generally results in a massive amount of personal pressure. Pressure to keep yourself focused, pressure to finish everything you need to get done, pressure to do it right, and of course pressure to do well in everything you accomplish. If you can handle that pressure, you accomplish more; the pressure is your friend.
When pressure is your foe, it’s a different situation. When you don’t handle pressure well, suddenly it controls you. The stress quickly makes every situation in the day so big that you feel like you can’t handle it. You lose focus, get down on yourself, become even more pressured, and inevitably you can spiral out of control and reach a point where it is impossible to reach your goal or achieve your expectation. A person cannot be successful if they cannot find a way to make pressure their friend, not their foe.
When we control pressure, we control the fire. When pressure controls us, the fire can consume us. To connect this back to myself, at times I struggle to control pressure. With my busy schedule a lot of the time pressure tends to be my foe. My parents always tell me to just do my best, and to not stress too much. Although this lowers my level of stress, my own expectation of how I should perform continues to allow pressure into my life. I’m a work in progress, but I do believe I have come a long way.
