Whenever someone talks about college, they never talk about it being a paradigm of oxymorons. As a college student you are always tired but appear to have the energy to go see a sport game, hang out with friends, and even join clubs. As a college student, the words midterms and finals are bittersweet. The exams are sweet because they signify the beginning of a respite but bitter due to the reality of cramming all the material for a single assessment. Another contradictory attitude found among college students is how we juxtapose each other's classes, social, extracurricular, and homework workload.
Stress is a common factor found in life. We all handle stress differently. For some it takes a huge amount of stress to rattle a single individual, while others it could take a quarter of the previous person's workload to stress a different individual. No matter the amount of workload that one college student has compared to another, we all have something to stress about.
Keeping up with grades, friends, and clubs is a struggle and not everyone has a perfect way to balance everything. Those who get stressed out more easily might be able to only balance grades and friends. Usually athletes prioritize their sport and grades while making friends along the way. People who have a more tolerable level of stress might be able to be an athlete, get decent grades, keep a social life and maybe have a job. No matter the amount of workload, college is a place where everyone is allowed to be stressed.
You are allowed to be stressed if you have a paper due at the end of the week and and a quiz in the middle. You are allowed to be stressed if you have a job, are a member of a club, and an exam to study for. I hope you know where I am going with this and am reassuring you that the struggle is real for everybody. Stop comparing yourself to your friends, classmates, and upperclassmen.
If anyone tells you that you don't have anything to be stressed about and then said person lists off reasons as to why their workload is more difficult then yours; I highly suggest to walk away. You do not need these people to make you feel bad for being stressed even though you have "nothing" to stress about. People who are trying to one up you probably are bearing too much stress they shouldn't be undertaking.
Here picture this. Imagine that you are chained in an empty pool with no water. Your pool is not the same width, length, and height as other people. I do not care if you are a 6 foot person because you could have a small width and length but tall height. As the theory of conservation applies, we all have the same level of stress but our containers of stress differ. Either you are standing in a pool of stress or drowning in stress with the same volume but different dimensions compared to others. Point made, the struggle is real for every college student.
