Y2K 25

Usually, I do two things simultaneously to "deal" with stress: 1. avoid it altogether. 2. stress about stress.

My stress relieving activities vary quite a bit, but they all serve the purpose of distracting me from what I’m supposed to be doing: ranging from fussing over my fingernails to strumming the guitar terribly to screaming at the top of my lungs (hmmm I just realized that most of these things are somewhat destructive in many ways). All of these methods are really quite effective in preventing me from focusing on what I need to do, and they tide me over until I reach that threshold where I can’t stand it anymore and I just work on whatever it is and finally stress actually works out and does what it’s supposed to do and makes me productive. (Except, haha, about that…)

More than the things that I stress about, I hate stress itself. I hate the tension, the anxiety, the irritableness, the feeling of being Atlas on his mountain. But one thing that really calms me down is the fact that it's all going to pass. Time slips by a second at a time and soon the deadline will loom but also lose all importance. So just work hard now and wait for that moment.

That's probably why I also stress about stress. Stress isn’t good for you, it makes me get stomachaches, makes me think about getting old, makes me irritated and not a fun person to be around. Sometimes I stress about not stressing, like when I didn't start studying in earnest for the APUSH test until a couple days beforehand. I knew that I was going to freak out later but my mind must not have really registered that. And even though maybe my body was doing a good job of dealing with pressure by not stressing, I was not helpful.