Writer: Emma McIsaac
“Oh yeah I’m fine, just tired.”
Being in my first year of university this is a sentence I hear daily. It’s often a sentence I say myself. I hear it from students who get 10-12 hours of sleep, from students who get 3-4; the responses don’t seem to change. With exams approaching, it’s something I hear more and more of. I see students who are awake, but not quite present. It’s been something surrounding me since I entered high school, and it’s a lot more complex than “just tired.”
Students who are now in high school, college or university have had an extremely unconventional education over the last three years. On top of classes moving online, students lost their sports teams, arts programs, and extra curricular activities. Everything went on standstill, and it’s something we’re still recovering from. Although it was a necessary precaution for global health and safety, the pandemic has left a lasting impact on the young adults of this generation.
Personally, I was heavily involved in musical theatre in high school, often participating in 2-3 shows at the same time. Whenever things were challenging at school or I was having problems with my friends, I always had the support of the theatre community to help me through it. It helped me express my emotions, work through my problems, and develop a community of likeminded people. In a society where good networking is becoming increasingly critical, this helped connect me to new people. When COVID hit, I lost all of that. I remained in contact with many individuals, but we couldn’t connect the way we used to, and I found myself drifting away from many of them.
In September 2020, I entered my senior year of high school. As I grappled with the stress of the pandemic as well as my graduation, I became rudely awoken to the long term impacts the pandemic would have on my education. Knowing I wanted to pursue a career in the arts, I began looking for schools I could attend. To my shock, my biggest problem wasn’t my academics. It was the fact that my experience was practically blank. It made me look at the last two years of my life and realize just how little I had to show for what I went through. It was a devastating realization after I had put so much work into simply getting through what was one of the hardest years of my life. It added more stress to the pile of overwhelming expectations the year had placed upon me. I wasn’t sure where I should be focusing my energy, and what schools really wanted.
As I entered university this fall, I realized that many of my peers had similar experiences. Although I continue to work hard and push myself to be my best, I don’t get satisfaction out of it anymore. I used to experience a rush of pride when I got a good mark whereas now I feel nothing. Contrarily, if I receive a bad mark, it impacts my mood for days. It doesn’t feel like there’s a payoff when there is always someone out there doing something better than you are. You go from one competition to another, and I know that when I graduate I will be thrown into a competitive industry where in order to even live a stable life, you have to go above and beyond.
It’s hard to be motivated when we don’t know what we’re looking for. My friends have no idea if they’ll ever be able to afford houses. All around me, I feel a sense of “What is this all for?” I believe this is the driving force behind the increasing mental health problems we see in students today. There is so much stress and pressure placed on individuals with no payoff in sight. It really takes a toll on you and makes it challenging to be motivated. This leads to procrastination, which leads to stress, which repeats the cycle all over again. It’s a loop we can’t seem to escape from.
Although academics are important, there needs to be a higher emphasis on making sure people enjoy their life while they have it. Postponing your happiness won’t make things better in the future. All we have is right here, and right now. So yes, study! Do the work to make sure you can get into a career that will genuinely fulfill you. Just don’t lose yourself along the way. It’s easy to get caught up in the stress and pressure of life, but you should always have something to look forward to. No matter how big or small, something to remind you that your life is your own, and you are more than the marks on your transcript. To quote She-Ra, “You’re worth more than what you can give to other people.”
There are people around you going through similar experiences. The burden of our stress lessens when we lean on the support systems we have built around us to help us carry through our lives. Stress is inevitable but it doesn’t have to be crippling. Take the time to learn what works for you so that you can make yourself a stronger student and person. Asking for help is never a weakness, and it will often help you unlock the key to your happiness.
