The Evolution of Stress

Working at a school has helped me to realize what I like to call "The Evolution of Stress" - allow me to explain:

One day a little 2 or 3 year old girl came in to the office with her mom to sign out one of our high school kids for the day. This little girl was absolutely balling her eyes out. You would have thought the world had fallen down right on her head. She was very, very upset.

I asked her what was making her so sad, and she very seriously said, "My Balloon".

Mom explained that her balloon was left in the car while they came in to pick up brother and the little girl was not happy about it.

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if our biggest stress was a balloon!!??

Another day, my little first grade friend, who visits me every day after school, came in looking very distraught. I asked him what was wrong, and he explained that he had had a very bad day. I asked him why and he simply said, "I got on yellow". Now, for those of you who don't speak "first grade" let me explain what this means: each kid in the class has a card with 3 colors - green, yellow and red. If the kid is good all day he/she will stay on green. If they start acting up and have to be warned more than once, the teacher will ask the kid to turn his/her card to yellow. When the kid continues to get in trouble, he/she will have to turn the card to red and more drastic measures need to be taken.

Well, my little guy has very good parents who give him consequences at home if he gets in trouble at school, and since he "got on yellow" he would have his Nintendo DS and television privileges revoked for a week (What to go parents!!), and my little guy knew that this was probably one of the worst things that could happen in his little world.

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if our biggest stress was getting on yellow!!??

Then you have my junior high kids who come to school tardy and their only excuse is "I woke up late". The rules say that they are to be issued a detention, and to some of them, losing their lunch period is the most horrible thing ever!!!

Then I think - sometimes I don't even get a lunch break and I show up on time to work!!!

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if our biggest stress were detention!!??

Now we get to High School, and all I have to say is one word - Prom. Will I get a date? What will I wear? Will he be able to match? Where do we go for dinner? Do I have enough money for tickets? What will the theme be? How will it be decorated? Will my mom and dad let me borrow the car?

Oh, wouldn't it be nice if our biggest stress were prom!!??

Then our high school kids graduate and they officially become grown ups - where most of us are now...

It's true that some of them will continue to live at home, or they will still be supported by their parents while they go to college, but eventually (and sooner than they know it) they will be living the "grown up life" and they will have brand new stresses: money, bills, higher education, marriage, kids, gray hairs (caused by kids), jobs, cars breaking down, gaining weight (our metabolisms slow down when we get older), midlife crisis, menopause, 401 Ks, sleep deprivation, stock market, politics......the list goes on an on.......

But then I realized, we have been trained for this stuff - we have had the balloon stress and the yellow stress and the detention stress and the prom stress! Each of these stresses has been a little bit bigger and more "grown up" than the last, so we are now able to handle the actual stresses life brings!

So, we can handle this! Whatever we are going through, we can handle it because we have had years of practice!!

Doesn't that make you feel good??

And, somewhere there may be someone who has already gone through what you are going through and saying, "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if my biggest stress was (insert thing here)" because they are on to bigger and better stresses!!!! And there are some people who are just there to help you out because they know what it is like.

I guess my point is, it's all good!! There is stress in life, but we know how to deal with it and there are people there to help and support us, so it's all good!!!!

It's all good!