No Pressure!

Pressure: the continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it. 

They say pressure can make or break you Pressure on the pedals of a bicycle will cause the wheels to turn and movement to begin. That same pressure exerted on a plastic cup or soda can will cause it to flatten and break. There are many different pressures and they come from many different places. Most of the pressures I experience on a day to day basis have to do with what my life looks like and what people think it should look like.

Everyone has a timeline in their head. A timeline of how they want their life to go. Sometimes these timelines are influenced by family or close friends. Mine in my head was always this: finish high school, go to college, fall in love, get a job, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. I've come to find out that God has a different timeline for my life. I did finish high school and went to college but then I transferred from there, transferred to my next college and withdrew from my third one. I fell in love and was close to marriage but I had my heart broken. People always ask me, what do you want to do? What makes you happy? Where are you going to school next? When are you going to finish your degree? What do you want to do with your degree? These questions and more plague me every minute of every day. I get tired and burned out by all the pressure put on me and all the things I think I should be doing. I realize that maybe my life doesn't have to look like everyone else's. Maybe the pressure being put on me is negatively affecting my efforts to be happy. Maybe my life is my own: to make my own mistakes and achieve my own success. Maybe my life doesn't have to fit on a timeline. Maybe I don't have to give into the pressures surrounding me on all sides everyday. I should be free to make my own mistakes and figure out the path of my own life. Nobody else can write out my story- only I can.

So maybe the timeline of my life looks a little funny. Maybe it has a couple of U-turns and wrong turns. Maybe I took the wrong exit a couple of times. If I keep letting the pressure from friends and family dictate my life, I will never end up where I want to be. So what if I don't have a college degree yet or a full time job. So what if I don't get paid to dance and only do it because I love it. So what that I never know how much money I will make in a month because I wait tables and my income in based on tips.

Everyone has pressure in their life somewhere. If you let this pressure rest on your shoulders, it can have the power to destroy you. Because most of the time we can never live up to what other people ask of us. The external pressure placed on me has led me to feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness, and an all around feeling of not being good enough. This life is mine and it's time that I start living it for myself. It's time that I shake off the pressure resting on me; pressure to conform to the timelines of everyone else. It's my life and I'm going to live it for me!