Hello! Sorry for the long pause in between blog posts! I’ve been busy with AP Testing and SAT. Oh dear, the SAT. That was challenging. By completing the SAT, I had finally checked a major assignment off my to do list. I had prepared to take this test for months, took tutoring classes on it, and now, it was finally done. Sure, I still had other work to do, but one of my biggest assignments, one of the things that took up most of my time, was completed. I wouldn’t have to do anything SAT related again, not unless I decided to retake the test. But for the next few weeks after the SAT, something felt…off. It wasn’t that the lack of SAT was liberating or that I had to find something to do now that I no longer had to dedicate so much time to that test; rather, I was more stressed than ever. My heart was racing all the time, my chest felt crushingly tight, and I felt like I was about to take two SATs instead of being finished with one! It made no sense at first. Why was I so stressed even though there really wasn’t anything to be anxious over? I still had a few more assignments, but those weren’t of too much concern at the time. They weren’t the cause of my newfound stress. As I soon found out, via an epiphany, it was the lack of stress that was causing me stress. It sounds crazy, I know. But let me explain. How? With an animal.
This is a blobfish:
Looks like sad, sentient mush. It was voted the ugliest animal in 2013. Yet as ugly as it looks right now, the truth is that blobfish don’t go around looking like that, not normally. In their natural habitat, they look like this:
Not so ugly now huh? The truth is, the blobfish is a fish that lives many, many leagues under the sea. As a result, it evolved to live under extreme pressure. It has no swim bladder, otherwise, it’d be crushed, and it has little muscle, with even less ligaments and other connective tissue to hold it together. It doesn’t need the connected tissue, the pressure does that work for it. But when that pressure is relieved, the blobfish falls apart. Its nose expands, its tissue sags down, and you get the mess that was named the world’s ugliest creature in 2013.
In a way, I, and lots of other students, are like the blobfish. I had lots of pressure on me. This year, despite the fact that I didn’t take as many APs as before, was tough. The classes were harder, I was actually being challenged in math (something I wasn’t used to) and I had to take my SATs. You know, the test that can largely determine what college you get into based on your score? All of my relatives were pressuring me to succeed, and many days, the stress was so great that I could barely breathe. So I adapted to it. I got used to the pressure, to the constant nagging, to the bucketload of assignments every single day (assignment, as always due very soon!)
But then, SAT testing came. I did the best I could, my score luckily didn’t get cancelled, and just like that, the SAT was over. But by then, I was missing something. The stress. I had acclimated to it, and now that it was gone, I was having trouble adjusting without it. I don’t know if people like the analogy I made with students and the blobfish, but I think that many overachievers, not just teens or students, feel this way too. They’re so used to the stress that it’s nerve wracking without it, which is why people can be stressed from a lack of stress. So they seek out even harder tasks to complete, just to get that comforting stress (never thought I would say that)
However, hear me out. Although I used the blobfish analogy, let me make one thing clear: I, and other overachievers like me, do not have to stay under such crippling pressure just to be able to function. Unlike the blobfish, I can train myself to adjust to the lack of stress. I can change how I react to anxiety, and how to be calm when there’s either too much work, or not enough work. It’ll take some time, but I can get used to not worrying, to not having another deadline due in two days. I can learn how to not be stressed by stress.
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