Pressure is a Privilege

My mom has always told me that pressure in a privilege. Until recently, I have not understood what this really means. Ever since, well, I was born, I have been expected to do my best 24/7 no matter what it takes. It has been hard to live up to the expectations that my parents put upon me, trust me there have been many a night where I have gone to bed sobbing. But this is what makes us stronger right? It's supposed to make us more motivated, right? Well throughout this crazy experience we call high school I have observed that the pressure levels can be graphed with a parabola. With no pressure and no attention, a student will fail but with too much pressure that a student can not handle ones self, that student will yet again fail. Especially in the nationally ranked school that I go to, all we talk about and hear about is pressure. Pressure to look your best, act your best, perform the best and out of all be the best. Not everyone can be the best and those who are not naturally talented at this one skill are left far in the dust. Not only do we have pressure from our school and teachers, but fellow classmates during passing periods and lunch. All they talk about are GPA's and ACT's, the few breaks we have during the day are spend talking about what is stressing us out in the first place. THEN when we finally spent our 8 hours in school, we get to go home and, wait for it, hear about how badly we are doing in school and how many activities we need to do on top of the at least 4 hour homework load. I know for a fact that our parents did not need to go through this. I know that pressure in a privilege because without it, I would not have any expectations. At least I know someone believes that I CAN achieve greatness. All I know is that every high schooler needs time to sit back and relax once in a while, because in the long run who are you living for? Not your parents, not your friends, not your school. You're living for you.