Despite the seemingly endless papers, quizzes and homework assignments, finding a silver lining can sometimes be the most difficult task on our to-do lists. When one thing happens, it all comes tumbling down. One failed test becomes earth-shattering, just as one failed relationship leaves us with, “I might as well get my 15 cats now." In other words, we find it difficult to see past all the blunders and mishaps, no matter how many blessings we might have.
For me, my brain is the biggest bully I’ve encountered; it forces me to obsess and make sure every second of my life is meticulously planned out. If things go my way, well, then no stress for me. On the other hand, the slightest unforeseen element leads to complete mental chaos. Under stress, I snap at the ones I love and feel like I have only two legitimate options: to drop out of college or spend every waking moment with my head inside a textbook and my fingers on a keyboard.
While we often pass this tendency off by saying, “I’m just stressed out,” there’s a whole lot more to our constant over-obsessing.
We’re living in a society that tells us to love others but still view them as competitors. We’re told to be perfect but still keep it all together. We’re expected to be inviting, outgoing and a force of positivity but not too overbearing. At the same time, we have to be aggressive but not in a way that can scare people away. Whether male or female, it’s likely that we’ve all experienced feeling like there’s no way to impress our professors, keep our parents happy and make time for our friends all at once.
In a lot of situations, we feel like living the perfect lifestyle shouldn’t be that hard since it’s the standard we are held to. In all honesty though, there’s no such thing as “having your shit together" because, to my knowledge, there hasn’t been a book published on what having your life together is all about.
We all assume that “having it all together” means having the perfect job, the perfect house and the perfect relationship because the people who seem to manage this get the most praise.
This unrealistic idea is planted in our brains from the moment we step into a school building and, for most children, it becomes their reality. In elementary school, you’re told from the get-go that you go to school so you can learn and go to college. Then, if we make it to college, we’re told our purpose is to get the perfect marks to land ourselves the perfect job.
While we’d all love to live this fantasy, the reality is that it’s impossible. Nobody will ever have the perfect job because there’s always a president, superintendent, deputy or some sort of boss to whom we'll report. At the same time, the perfect house will never be obtainable because there’s always someone with a bigger pool and a wider flat screen. When it comes to relationships, well, it’s a long shot since there’s always going to be a couple that seems happier.
What’s the common theme? We’ve got all the wrong idea of what “having our shit together” is all about. We base our ideas on what we’re told is good for us, instead of what we know makes us happy to wake up every day, make a cup of coffee and get the day going.
Once we start thinking of things in terms of what’s the healthiest, rather than what's the hippest, we’ll find that life doesn’t seem quite as stressful. Studying becomes a quest to learn, rather than a battle to get the highest score possible. Knowledge gets you a job, not getting a better grade than the kid who sits next to you. Just like that, our relationships become grounded in finding maximum happiness and not maximum "likes" on those anniversary Instagram posts. We begin to focus on how hard we worked to afford our luxuries rather than wondering how we can get the next best thing.
In other words, the only way to stop being so hard on ourselves is to realize that it’s not about spending every moment working towards the next. Every decision we make and task we accomplish shouldn’t be done because “we have to” or because “we were told to” but because we respect ourselves enough to use the brain and talents we were given. Genuine reasoning for what we do will stop the upset over never being at the top. It’s about doing what we're meant to, not what we’re told to. So, let’s take a risk now and then, make time for the people we love, run more often and read as much as we can. These are the experiences that we’ll be proud of.
