Stress – Creative Writing Essay
A National Health Interview survey indicates nearly 75% of the general population experiences at least “some stress” every two weeks and half of those experience moderate or high levels of stress during the same two-week period. In my life I can honestly say that this
last year has been one of the most stressful years of my life. The three main causes of stress in my life include; searching for a college, applying for scholarships, and finding purpose in my life.
I was a senior in high school when I began to search for a college and that made an enormous amount of stress for me because of the lack of time. When I first started looking I was in no hurry, thinking that I had an entire year until I would have to make the decision of where to attend. Before I knew it there were three months left in the school year and I still did not know where I was going to attend college. I had a couple of ideas on where I thought I wanted to go; Kirkwood Community College, Indian Hills, and Marshalltown Community College. I went on a campus visit to all three campus’s and then started the nerve wrecking process of making the decision. What made this decision so stressful was that no matter which college I went to, I would know absolutely nobody. That’s a hard transition for anybody, especially since I came from a small school where I knew everyone. To add to the stress, when I decided that I wanted to study agriculture, the only college that I had been to, with that area of study was Kirkwood. But my friend told me about NIACC and that they offer agriculture programs just like Kirkwood and so I decided to go to NIACC with him. Therefore since I delayed choosing where I wanted to attend college, it caused a great amount stress during the last couple months of my senior year.
Another cause of stress in my life was applying for mass numbers of scholarships that required large amounts of work for each scholarship. My senior year I applied for over ten scholarships that were due within a week of each other. For example there were two scholarships that were due on a Monday and then two more that were due the next day. For each scholarship there was a three sheet application paper were I entered my general information and my interests. Then three of the four pages required a 800-1000 word essay explaining why I deserved to get this certain scholarship. The fourth required a 500-600 word essay on top of a one hour long interview with board members of the scholarship committee. Just those four scholarships caused a good deal of stress due to the of the lack of time that I had available. Large amounts of scholarship applications that are all due close to each other cause a good amount of stress.
The biggest stress causing factor in my life was searching for my soul purpose in life. Ever person goes through this thought process of trying to figure out why they are alive on this earth and what is the point of life. Not knowing what your purpose in life is, can cause enough stress in ones life to become suicidal. For example, the first few years of my teen years I was going through all the stress trying to belong to a certain group and be the popular one in school. All that time I was searching for something to fill this hole of acceptance that was in my heart. There was a point during that time were I was planning on killing myself because I couldn’t deal with all the pressure, depression and stress. But I found that there is a God who loves me so much, that He sent His only Son to die to save my life and to give me a purpose in this world. Since I found Jesus, I understand that it’s not my place to worry about what my purpose in life is, for He knows all things and calls for all of us to trust in Him. Searching for my soul purpose in life is quite stressful but I am so thankful that I have found a God to trust my future with.
According to National Health Interview, a recent survey indicates nearly 75% of the general population experiences at least “some stress” every two weeks and half of those experience moderate or high levels of stress during the same two-week period. The three main causes of stress in my life include; searching for a college, applying for scholarships, and finding purpose in my life. I can honestly say that this last year has been the one of the most stressful years of my life.