Stress — Will It Ever Stop?

The world that high schoolers live in today has become nothing more than a stressful search to determine what their futures will withhold, while additionally trying to navigate through the competition among their classmates. Worst yet, many students engage in extracurricular activities that they must balance with their determined efforts to keep as many A’s as possible. And this doesn’t even conclude the troubles that students face, as they have to put their endless schoolwork aside at times in order to be with their loved ones. All of these elements combined create a very common, and dreaded, feeling -- anxiety.

The shocking component to it all is that students and surrounding adults rarely make a significant attempt to relieve student stress. Our society simply brushes the anxiety of others to the side, just like how society disregards the immoral ways that we treat animals, as seen in “Consider the Lobster.” Wallace questions how his audience can eat animal products without feeling immoral as he asks, “what makes it feel truly okay, inside, to just dismiss the whole thing out of hand?” (680). His question has a strong correlation to the relationship between anxiety-filled students and the adult society: how do adults, knowing that many students are troubled by stress, manage to not seem overly concerned about this issue? Adults are fully aware that students experience anxiety and even place awareness upon the programs that support mental-health; yet, if the same stressed students choose to not take advantage of these helpful opportunities, then many adults dismiss them as being “fine.”

Likewise, students are guilty of the same situation. They are clearly aware that their classmates experience the same struggles and that helpful programs would be pleased to support them, but it seems that many students ignore these opportunities. They are afraid to truthfully speak about their anxiety, and feel as if they have to focus on their top priority of school, since it will “determine the success” of their futures. But, there comes a time when students and adults need to consider how feeling the smallest amount of stress for five days a week could have a serious impact on one’s health. Yes, stress is obviously a part of life, whether being in high school or adulthood, but I believe that the negative mentality of students in this generation is not something that our society should regard with such little concern.