Welcome to the Real World; Stress Everywhere

When I arrived at school a little over three months ago, I thought I was in the real world. I wasn’t living with my parents, I was responsible for doing my own work, managing my own time, and making my own decisions. The Real World! I was doing fantastic! My classes weren’t beating me up, I thought I was on top of the world. It just takes a small part of your foundation to fall away for everything to come tumbling down…

I won’t go into details, but I recently absorbed a HUGE amount of stress and confusion into my personal life. Not by choice, but by circumstance. This all happened on Sunday. My first final, Monday morning. I was terrified of life. My percussion technique final on Monday went alright. I could have aced it had I not been tired and had my mind not been else where. So here I am, thinking I know what the real world is for months. Now I have a better understanding. I understand that the real world is when you have stress in your own life, stress in your work life, and there’s nothing you can do about any of it accept deal with it and do the best you can. I understand that the real world only gets realer as we go on in life.

All of my finals are within the realm of music. All but one are performance finals. Musical performance’s take the utmost focus and concentration. If you worry that you will make a mistake, you will make that mistake, more than likely joined by other stupid, little mistakes. I took my Ear Training final this morning. That was the one everyone has been nervous about, one of the most challenging courses a young music student at Saint Rose has to take.

I may have aced it. I practiced the upright bass last night, as my major performance is tomorrow, and I was surprisingly pleased with my sound. I have been wondering how this could be possible.  Stress is a natural feeling for everyone, especially at the end of the semester. However, I think that the stress I have been feeling for my music finals got transferred over to my personal life. I’m so worried about what’s going on that focusing on music is an escape from reality for me.

So, stressing about your finals? My advice; stress about something else for the week, if you feel the need to stress about something in these busy times (and let’s face it, we all do). Get a ridiculous hair cut and stress about what your mom will say when you get home. Put holes in the bottoms of your socks and stress about when you are going to get new socks. I don’t know, my ideas are getting ridiculous, but use your own imagination.

Lastly, think about your finals from a different perspective. Don’t think that they are tests upon which your teachers will judge whether or not you can move on to the next semester, think of them as a chance to show your teachers everything you have learned thus far. Have you been working hard? Then success is almost inevitable.