Stress is the enemy. It can drive us to the brink with the fear, despair, and hopelessness it can bring. It has the power to ruin relationships, cause nervous break downs, and even drive some to end their lives. However, within the darkness stress can bring, could there possibly be a silver lining lodged deep within it? Could it possibly be a force for good?
Stress is never something people think about as potentially beneficial, but here are a few ways it can be just that.
1. Stress will cause you to budget your time wisely.
For anyone who has been to college, you know that stress happens. Do you remember the days when you had two tests, three assignments, and a semester project all due in the same week? After a brief freak-out, you got organized! One of the benefits of stress is it will cause a person to immediately begin figuring out a solution to any given problem, and (in this example) most students would start planning when they would make time to accomplish all of their given tasks.
2. Stress is the cure to procrastination.
Do you remember that deadline your boss gave you for your work? When that deadline suddenly shrinks from a month to three days, guess what will motivate you to get your work done better than you boss’s “employee incentives” ever could? Stress is the greatest (yet most despised) motivator ever. Did you even know you could type so fast?
3. Stress will force you to learn.
Out of the goodness of your heart, you bought your daughter a cell phone for Christmas. She thinks you are the greatest mother on the planet and cannot wait to start using it! Well by the end of January, your phone bill has tripled! How does a teenage girl talk so much on a cell phone? Was is not just for emergencies? Some boy named Chad is definitely not an emergency. It is a good thing you have stress to teach you a very valuable (and sometimes painful) lesson on buying a good cell phone plan and setting rules for cell phone usage.
4. Stress is temporary.
Probably the best aspect about stress is that it is temporary. Once the test is taken, the deadline is met, and your finances are in control, stress leaves. Stress is the stray cat wandering around the neighborhood that suckers everybody to feed it while never staying in one place for long. It comes and goes as it pleases; that is its nature.
Stress may be something we all wish to avoid all the time, but it is bound to come. Instead of hating life while stuck within stress, it is best to learn from it and keep pushing forward.