Stress Me In

I love my college. The people act with consideration and compassion, the academics keep my mind alive, and the opportunities available continue to amaze me. But all of this – the social life, the challenging schoolwork, the myriad of commitments – comes with a cost: stress.

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I’m not sure if it’s the school-related stress or my intrinsic need to write or the gnawing feeling I have that I’ve abandoned my blog, but I’m going to write a quick post.

I love to ponder. To analyze. To ruminate. I even have “thinking” as one of my Facebook activities to trick people into assuming I’m deep. If one does not attempt to assess certain aspects of their lives – who they are, what their goals are, etc. – then it would be extremely difficult to lead a fulfilling life. You have to learn from your mistakes so that you don’t make them again, and you have to question things that don’t seem right to be a better person.

Yet there are limits to thinking. No matter how much you think about something, you can’t change it unless you act. Thinking allows you to attain a clearer image of your life, but what good is that image if you don’t do anything with it? Some people afflicted with depression are caught in a mental downward spiral – unable to focus on anything except the negative thoughts taking over their minds, they lose the ability to do anything besides grieve for themselves as they helplessly watch the world pass by.

Furthermore, one can over-analyze as well. I’ll use an example I haven’t brought up in a long time: child abuse. A child abuser, is, well, a child abuser. There’s no other way to look at it. Sure, the abuser might have come from a long line of child abusers so that they were born in a toxic environment, or maybe they’re suffering from a mental disease and can’t control their actions – but, no matter what, they are a child abuser. You can sympathize with the abuser, you can empathize with what they’ve gone through in their lives, whatever. They hurt kids. That’s that.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that people should face their problems for what they are as opposed to coming up with excuses for things that are clearly in their control. This reminds me of students who say that they’re intelligent but get bad grades because they’re lazy – maybe they should try harder then. And if you know someone who is bullied or has an eating disorder or cuts themselves, who cares if they don’t want help or have issues with attention? Get them help. It is what it is.

I am a firm believer that life contains many shades of gray. But some situations call for a simple, realistic perspective of black and white.

Thoughts?

By the way, two more days until this blog’s one year anniversary! I’m behind on responding to comments and what not, I promise I’ll get to it by the weekend. Also, thanks to Devina for partially inspiring this post… as well as my dad, who’s probably the most realistic person I know.

He's a ladies' man. Are you guys excited for Christmas? I was, but realized I had no friends to go shopping for...

PS: I was thinking about this a little more and I realized just how many things it applies to… and, you guessed it, I have to mention gays. I mean, these are just people who love each other, but then you throw in religion and the government and the Apocalypse and things get way more messy than they need to be. Rick Perry doesn’t even make sense when he talks about gays… but this guy does.