We recently watched a video regarding stress, how stress affects our lives in all sorts of ways. When we are put in a situation of a big change, good or bad, we experience stress. That rush of adrenaline, when your heart starts pumping faster. The woman in the video explained how there are multiple studies where people have passed due to stress because they thought that stress was bad. They were convinced that the stress they were experiencing had bad effects on themselves. Yet the study also had people who did not consider stress a bad thing, and their rate of death was unrelated to stress. That’s because stress can be a good thing – if you choose to believe it.
Before watching the video, I never felt like a stressed person. I had always had the mindset that whatever stress I had, was something I could get through because there are always worse situations in the world. Although I didn’t view stress as a bad thing, I didn’t view it as a good thing either. I also never considered the adrenaline of a happy event is the same as something I would label a ‘bad’ event.
Now that I have seen the video and the proof behind why stress can be a good thing if you choose it, I see now that I have complete control over how I want to manage my stress. I don’t think I am wrong in my previous mindset that I shouldn’t let stress get to me, but I want to be able to convert it to good stress. I want to be able to see it as a challenge for myself, that I can trust myself enough to get through it.
As for the future, from what I have heard, IB is only going to get more stressful. When considering who I admire most in the world, I see the skills of being strong-willed, empathetic, driven and calm. I think being calm is an extremely underrated skill to have. I don’t think us as humans want to admit that we take almost everything much too seriously, but we do.
As for the qualities I want to avoid, I feel like I understand even in myself when I have qualities I want to work on. For example, I feel like I am too dependent on rules, I find it difficult to be able to step outside my comfort zone and be spontaneous. But I think there are obvious qualities such as being cruel, dishonest, disloyal, greedy that should be avoided in not only myself.
