Metro Minute: Now You're Thinking with Pressure

I'm riding the metro into school for my last day of review before my first exam. This exam carries 75% of my grade for the course. Not exactly a small amount. The pressure is certainly mounting. Which is what I'm going to yak about for the next twenty minutes or so.

What is pressure? Not the physical pressure, no, that I understand just fine. But what is it that makes field goal kickers crack, performers slip, and stress on students? Again, not physical pressure, although that could explain each of those things but the emotional pressure. Mental pressure.

If we're honest with ourselves we all know we want others to at least respect us (however little our behavior indicates that...yes, Rose...). We like being able to do things and do those things well. It is part of the reason we don't immediately volunteer what information we have about a subject because we don't think said information is effective enough or complete. Ask an open question in a classroom of students and, while hopefully at least most of them know the answer hardly anyone will say anything. Partly because they're not comfortable speaking for everyone to hear but also because there's that little voice in one's mind saying, “What if you're wrong? What then?”

So this comes back to pressure. It is appropriately named because it really is a result of people heaping expectations upon you. Those all weigh down on your mind. You know that these people will think of well of you if you meet those expectations and won't if you don't. This is why I rambled a bit a moment ago. Whenever a certain level of performance or quality of work is expected there is pressure to meet that level. Particularly if that level is just about the highest you personally can possibly reach.

Take, for example, frisbee. I love to play and I'm not trying to brag when I say I'm a pretty good player. When I left Bermuda for university a lot of people were disappointed to see me go as I would no longer be there for the weekly games. Now that I'm going back for Christmas all those people are eagerly awaiting my return and will obviously expect me to play at the same high level I did all of last year (academic year, that is). However, I haven't actually thrown a frisbee for almost two months. That's a long time to go without throwing a frisbee. There's bound to be some level of rust and I'm not going to meet those expectations right away. Add to this that I know that and they don't and there's a lot of pressure build up. Which makes the whole situation worse.

But anyways. All that to say I'm under a lot of pressure for these finals. A lot of people expect a lot. The good news is that I know I'm capable of meeting those expectations. The bad news is I'm not sure if I will....hence, pressure.