Put your midterms into perspective

My entire life I have allowed one thing to overwhelm me – stress.

I cried every single day… My entire life I have allowed one thing to overwhelm me – stress.

I cried every single day of kindergarten. If my art teacher was giving directions on how to paste two pieces of construction paper together, I would cry if the snot-nosed brat next to me completed the task before I could. I was completely incapable of withstanding pressure.

Once, I accidentally got on the bus at the end of the day when I knew my parents were coming to pick me up. It had entirely slipped my mind, and my kindergarten teacher ended up having to chase the bus down in her car and force it to pull over to let me off. Take a guess at what I did. You got it – I cried.

My problem-solving skills improved over the years, but I can’t say that I don’t succumb to a little breakdown here and there.

Take the last few weeks for example: three papers due one week, three midterm exams the next. I may shed a couple of tears in between, but ultimately I feel pretty proud of my bad self when I have everything completed.

However, I was really forced to put things into perspective last week. I decided to give my best friend from home a call to see how she was. I knew that amidst all the stress I was dealing with, she of all people would be able to make me laugh and loosen me up just a bit.

We decided in the third grade that we were to be best friends. And we stuck to it through boys, gossip and the other countless tragedies high school kids experience.

Our senior year we found out that she was pregnant. It changed her life and our friendship forever. Instead of morning gossip sessions, I spent the time before homeroom holding her hair back while she had morning sickness. On our senior trip to Six Flags Great Adventure I spent the day walking around Sea World with her and not riding any rides.

Then I left for Pitt that fall, and she started classes at a nearby community college in our hometown. I returned home for Christmas break my freshman year to a beautiful baby girl. I watched as our lives took two very different paths. But I’ve learned that two people who are close can come into their own without growing apart.

So when I called her to complain about my tests and papers – and suddenly heard her almost-two-year-old daughter begging her to read her a story in the background – I was snapped back into reality. Not only is she taking a full course load, but she’s also a waitress and a full-time mom.

What do I have to complain about?

Oh darn. I have a test this week. Guess I can’t watch “Laguna Beach” or “The Real World.”

But honestly, I know that this time of the year can seem extremely stressful for college students. We are under a ton of pressure to perform well on our midterm exams, and they all seem to pile up at once. In fact, a good friend of mine had all five of hers this week.

Yet, in the grand scheme of things, what difference is a single test in children’s literature going to make in affecting your whole future? Now, I’m not condoning burning “Charlotte’s Web” and frolicking around campus all footloose and fancy-free. But I am borrowing a valuable piece of advice to pass on to you.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff – and for the most part, right now, it’s all small stuff.”

Author Richard Carlson has published several books on this exact ideology. Through chapters titled “Turn Your Melodrama into a Mellow-drama,” and “When in Doubt About Whose Turn It Is to Take out the Trash, Go Ahead and Take It Out,” he reminds us that we seek out stress just as much as it seems to find us.

In a world where we can’t escape daily news stories of suicide bombings, devastating natural disasters and heinous crimes, we should be constantly reminded of how lucky we are simply to have to deal with a midterm exam or paper.

As Baz Luhrmann, the guy who wrote “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen),” said, “Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”

So, step back and put things into perspective. Midterms will pass, your heart will mend and that terrible haircut will eventually grow out.

To help Jessica apply her sunscreen while the weather is still nice, e-mail her at jrp32@pitt.edu.