18: please, stop stressin’

I admit it…I was a Saved By the Bell junkie. 

When I was younger, I watched it whenever I had the chance: in the morning before school, Friday nights, Saturday mornings. If it was on chances are I was watching it. I loved it, even with all of it’s cheesiness I couldn’t get enough. 

I loved that everyone had their role to play. I mean you always knew that Zack would pull whatever scheme he had off. You knew Kelly would be adored even if the particular show wasn’t about her. You knew Lisa was never going to love Screech, but Screech was always going to love her. You could count on Jessie being stressed about school or studying. And Slater never fell short on being the stud army brat who somehow pulled off the hideous wrestling uniform.

(I wasn’t kidding…die hard junkie.)

In one of my favorite episodes (pre-college years because everyone knows they are really the best) Kelly, Lisa, and Jessie are performing at the “The Max.” (They sang, they danced…it’s shocking it’s my favorite, I know.) But throughout the entire show when they were trying to prepare Jessie is so stressed about a test that she takes caffeine pills to stay awake to do it all. 

(In the end she doesn’t get to perform the night of the big show [and my heart breaks because I know it was going to be the best scene of the entire show]  but because she is whacked out on pills she can’t.)

My point is…have you ever felt like you needed caffeine pills? Or, more likely, another kind of pill? Or drink?

To keep you awake and going to study for that test? Or finish that last paper?

Have you ever been so stressed out about something that you felt you couldn’t take it? That the pressures would simply fall and smother you before you ever had a chance to move out of the way?

College does that to you. It all starts when they begin telling you the SAT determines your entire future. (For the record: It doesn’t.) And then you have to pick a major at eighteen that also will “determine” the rest of your life. Eighteen!!? I could not be trusted at eighteen. (Alright fine, I probably could be trusted at eighteen, but, you see, I am cursed. I was born an old woman so I actually am the exception in this one scenario, not the rule.) The rule is eighteen = freedom, liberation, exploration, adventure, identity and pleasure seeking. Eighteen does not equal: “let me weigh the pros and cons of every possible direction my life can go in and pick the right one.” It just doesn’t. No one even wants to do that at thirty.

So then you’re in this new place with new rules (read: no rules) and you’re asked to be responsible and take care of yourself, oh, and don’t forget to study because the rest of your life depends on it.

Psssshhh.

Can we take some of the pressure off and just say the fate of the rest of your life does not hang in one class, one test, one pop quiz, one evil professor who is out to destroy your life? It doesn’t.

Ah. Perfect. Breathing better yet?

And all those big decisions you have to make…have an answer, but that doesn’t mean you get to know how that answer plays out or even what it is until your “crisis” has already come and gone.

Twenty something is an important time to grow, to know who you are, to dabble in different avenues, and to figure out how to grow and make decisions. Here’s a little tip, though: Your big Papa, Abba Father upstairs has made a way for you. You have a purpose. There is a plan written for you. The answers are there. 

  Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.