Conditioned to Feel Stress

As a recent graduate of only a few weeks, the residual effects being conditioned to feel stressed from academic life has yet to wear off. It could have something to do with how I personally approach university life, but I'd guess after 4 or so years at university most people grow accustomed to feeling stress associated with balancing classes, work, and everything else in a busy student’s life. By that, I don’t mean that I think most students learn to manage their stress in a healthy way; a lot of college students never learn to adequately manage the stress of college life before they stumble out of the four-ish year wilderness ass-backwards across the graduation finish line.

In my personal college experience, there was always a tough mathematical concept for me to learn just around the bend at any given moment--and to be honest, most of the stress came from my honestly not knowing if I’d be able to wrap my head around the upcoming complex concepts. A lot of my stress wasn’t in the actual studying or classwork, but the constant anticipation of the work to be and remembering in the back of my mind that after I finish whatever it is I happen to be enjoying at any given time that I’ll probably be up most of the night finishing some paper, proof, or project.

As a result, it’s reasonable to feel like, as a student, you’re being trained to not feel excited about life. If you’ve been repeatedly conditioned to not let yourself get excited about it being the weekend because of the impending upcoming Monday, or to not let yourself enjoy dinner with friends because it cuts into your homework time which will then cut into your sleep schedule--then you’re not alone. Being a student is hard. There’s always more you could be doing, more you could be studying instead of being out having fun. Your effort might even be good enough to get yourself an A, but it’s never enough to feel like you genuinely did everything you possibly could to succeed.

It seems to me like this is part of growing up. Being mature enough to realize there’s always some part of you that is unrealized potential, or coming to the realization that you don’t actually know what your optimal path in life is--that’s an important part of the human experience, as far as I can tell.

So that's where I’m at right now. After graduating, I’m at a crossroads of sorts. There’s about a million directions I could take my math degree and run. But as far as stress is concerned? I’m sure the next major catalyst is just around the corner, but I’m not worried. It’s a funny thing that one can feel stress in merely the anticipation of future stress, but hey. That’s life.