Feature

The Stress Game

Yamin Tauseef Jahangir

It all begins from the time of our adolescence. The urge to perform better and the necessity to master ourselves in knowing all that there is to know makes us a part of the rat race from early on. Be it in getting a cool surprise gift for being the first to finish the sums or the desire to come out first in class, we have been in the stress game ever since we learnt the basics of life. Living up to the parents expectations have always been a challenge, some come out clean in this while some often end up getting derailed.

The first hurdle in our lives comes with the passing of SSC and HSC or the O Levels and A Levels examinations. I remember those late night group studies that my friends and I used to do trying to solve the Physics questions or the moment in the examination hall where the invigilator spoke in a weird accent warning us about the rules that we had to follow. Everything is just the same even today, but now students have to endure a lot of pressure than before just to get a good grade. It is good to be studious but exceeding the limit is always unwise. I did hang around with my friends and also managed to balance my social and education life, because these are the only two things important to you when you are still a teen. People often forget to concentrate on the former and put all their attention on the latter thereby missing out the crucial times when they could also learn the ethics and the family values which in later lives do affect their adulthood. Relations then get hard to maintain, sentiments are often misunderstood and frustration knows no bounds. It becomes a basic scenario to see youngsters with the most insolent and impertinent attitudes and remarks and parents are the poor souls to suffer.

I admit that I have never been a sharp head and I do confess that I am exaggerating the words, but I have seen many to believe that passing with flying colours was all that mattered in their lives. As a consequence they became oblivious to the outside world and created their own; a bubble that comprised of him, the study books, the paperbacks, and a mug of coffee. That might be the first symptom and I have seen children as well as teenagers to loose the essence of youthful exuberance from a very early stage. Back in my childhood I was a kid who was ready with trainers and a juvenile spirit to kick off the soccer ball. But as time went by and my feet became more used to crossing roads for my office than for the football ground, I noticed changes in today's society. Children are now more confined in their own space and are more prone to fiddling with all sorts of gadgetries. X-box and Nintendos have replaced soccer hours and cycling. Less activities are more evident in families who own apartments where children hardly interact with the person next door. Some families are always so over protective of their little ones that at times it suffocates the child and that too is stress. There are others who are up to the task of making their children to be the genius of all time but they hardly realize how much the person can take and so more study hours and tutors eventually make the mind to collapse. However, exceptions are there where the family support the children and so understands the problems been faced by them.

The solutions are quite simple; only by interactions we can share our thoughts and ideas which will allow us to be more composed and confident. Friends and family are the best people one can ever get and if they are good listeners you can refrain yourself from being frenzy and get encouragement to perform better. Getting too serious about petty issues is another sign of stressful acts and only a level head can be the remedy. Advices are always helpful and allow a person to understand other perspectives which he may not have even thought of, but they are seldom taken.

Now as we advance towards the next hurdle, that is the university life, stress becomes more of an internal factor than been imposed. To elucidate lets say you create your own paradigm and you work things out accordingly. For some stress is more based on emotions; it deals with the way you look, what you put on to impress the girl that sits on the other end of the row, or the desperation to overcome the feeling of being inferior when you are amongst your new friends. For a few, stress is more career based, whether you see yourself in the most successful status after your graduation or not, and for the rest they are more care free and the definition of stress actually got no space in their minds.

University shows us different aspects of life. Here we truly figure out our true potentials and who we actually are. It portrays the ways in what we are naive and also signifies the areas where we show our maturity. The campus life is full of mixed emotions, various changes in lifestyle and these four years tell you in what ways you can bring out the best within yourself. You can never be the cry baby on huffy remarks or on sarcastic punches, you can never imagine yourself to throw your head off on someone like you used to when you lost in a Super Mario game, but you got to act like an adult. With open credit system, no one is there to pester you in choosing your courses. You can hang around the premise for as many hours as you feel like, and do all the gossip throughout the day. Although there are deadlines to meet regarding quizzes and assignments, one can easily keep the stress factor in control once you are up to date with your paper works. All these experiences make you an individual who is responsible, matured, thoughtful and independent. The excursion, the study tours all comprises of opportunities to explore your knowledge as well as to enjoy to your heart's content. You can become a teacher's favourite and with exam knocking at your door you already know how to handle it. For few students a stressful environment is all that they wish for because they are so used to it, and at times can even perform well. But for the majority, we do want to have some peace for our mind and so nothing beats the university life which remains as a turning point in our lives and the memories we share remains a lifetime.

Having said it all, the contrasts of the 'stress game' are something we all should consider. After all, it is the different ups and downs that teach us how to tackle situations, but we should also learn to maintain composure right from our childhood and follow it into the later stages of becoming a man of the world.