Stress and Release

If you are a college student you have a very intimate relationship with the word stress;  homework piling up, midterm grades around the corner, and not to mention yesterday, when stacy told me I looked fat in my new jeans! OMG! All joking aside, however, we all deal with a lot of things in college and when things begin to overwhelm us we can feel very lost and hopeless.

Now I always try and make my titles relate to my writing in some way, and today's blog is no different; you see, while all of us experience the averse effects of stress, hopefully everyone has also been able to experience the release from stress after making something in your life better, or completing a difficult task.

A perfect example of this is the way this past week has been for my friend Jordan. He had several papers, a performance, and a speech due all in one week; needless to say, he was pretty stressed and it showed in everything he said and did. That's not to say at all he did anything wrong, lots of people deal with stress much worse, but it did make him more tense and it definitely affected his moods throughout the day. But this morning, when I saw Jordan, he was in such a good mood it was hard to believe! He had finished almost all of his work for the week and had done it all very well. He experienced a complete turnaround in mood and as a result infected everyone around him with his positive mood.

"One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."-B. Russell.

 I think the above quote adequately sums up what I want to say with this article; yes, we all have stressors, and some we can control, but it's not worth it to over-worry about the stressors we can't control. For instance, if you are having some trouble with relationships, or there is something going on at home that you can't control you need to give it to God. It sounds really simple, but it's not, and I think a lot of times it's easy to say "just give it to God" when it's someone else's problem and not our own, but much harder to let go of problems when they are our own. Regardless, to have true freedom from these stressors in life, we need to give our problems to God.

So, if you are like Jordan, maybe you need to take Russell's advice and take your work a little less seriously; or, if you're like me, you need to give up the things you want to control so badly but can't to God. 

Trust me, I'm pretty sure he's got it under control.

-Dave