I don’t remember the last time I wasn’t stressed out. I’m 19 years old and know a lot about grief, loss, disappointment and heartbreak. Our generation has always been stressed out. According to the American Psychological Association’s stress by generation study, “52 percent of millennials report having lain awake in the past month due to stress.” Is it technology ruining us? Is it social media messing with us? Or are we too busy trying to fill the shoes of those before us?
I have a paper due tonight, one due tomorrow, something due Monday and a peer review on Thursday. The list goes on and on. So is it college making me stressed out? No, I’ve been stressed all my life. In middle school I worried about high school, in high school I worried about college, in college I am worrying about graduate school and I can only imagine that in graduate school I will worry about finding “the one” for me.
I remember being in middle school, and how I worried about college and what I wanted to be. At 13 years old, I contemplated my future, and I thought I was doomed. I didn’t have a plan, and that was not good. At 14, I thought about high school and college and where I wanted to go, and if I wanted to be in my town's high school or a technical high school. At 15, I thought that picking the college I wanted to go to would be easy. At 19, I worry about grad school and being successful.
I don’t know where it went wrong; I don’t know what causes people to be this way, but I know that I am this way. We are 19 going on 29; we worry about tomorrow, next month, next year and even the next 10 years. I think about graduate school as a freshman in college. I wonder where I will go or if I made the right choice. Should I change schools? Will I fail? I lay awake at night as these thoughts run through my head, and I still have papers to write.
We come into college ready to learn, ready to meet new friends and to experience new things. These are all the things I read in books -- first loves, first parties -- but as time passed and our generation grew up, we experienced those things earlier in life than our parents. Many of us experience heart break before we even take our PSATS.
We know what it is to cry at night, and to wish our circumstances would change. We all think we can make a change because those before us made a change. We are too busy thinking how we can “outdo” those written about in our textbooks, rather than live life as it comes. We are a generation focused on tomorrow, and yesterday, but never on today. We scream "YOLO" in classrooms, not having a clue what it actually means. We only live once, but are we truly living. Are we living to our fullest potential, taking in every second of every day? I am not; I worry about every second, and how I am mismanaging my time.
As millennials, we never dealt with waiting; we grew to love instant gratification. In essence, if I can’t find out this very second what is going on, I am lost. We never knew about dial-up internet; WiFi is our best friend. We can text a friend in seconds. We can check our grades right away. What is waiting to millennials?
When our cell phone reception is too slow, we complain. When the teacher didn’t post the test grade, we complain. We don’t know how to wait or when to wait. Waiting is for the weak. I knew Kim Kardashian was pregnant within seconds of her posting it. I saw videos of cop shootings an hour after they happened.
When was the last time you got eight hours of sleep at night, and at once? Millennials are the most sleep deprived group in America. Why? The best Twitter fights happen at night, or maybe you have a paper that’s due at midnight, or maybe you just broke up with your boyfriend, or maybe you’re too busy binge drinking, trying to remove the pain.
At night, when the lights are off and you’re alone with your thoughts, those are the worst moments. Nothing good ever happens at night. My brain doesn’t seem to want to shut off; it just wants to keep moving and reminding me of what I need to do, and what I haven’t done. At night, my brain is my worst enemy, because my stress comes full force. While I’m talking to my friends and laughing, I forget what I am stressed about. But, once I’m alone, it’s all back. I wish I knew what it was not to be stressed out, but I was born in the wrong generation for that.
