STRESS is a word that requires all caps

{a lovely, unstressed picture of me in Jamaica. *sighs* *cries*}

Isn't it amazing the way we get stressed out about everything? Especially when stress is an absolutely completely 100% USELESS thing to feel. I mean, since when have you been more productive, felt better about yourself, or been a more positive person because of stress? Since never. But yet we continue to worry ourselves sick about things that are, for the most part, beyond our control.

Can I control that today I did not practice my violin but instead ate cap'n crunch, gushers, and apple pie? I cannot now that I've eaten them. But I can and am stressing about it right now. Can I control that I have musical rehearsal until 9:30 p.m. tomorrow and I will be at school all day and I might not practice and I might be really annoying around my friends? No. Does that mean I'm not stressing about it? Also, unfortunately no.

I want to stop stressing so much about the things I can't control. I need to let them go, let them be, accept and even enjoy them as they come. This, I think, might be easier even than the other problem I have with stress.

See I have this thing where if something doesn't go exactly perfectly, I get frustrated and just want to throw the whole thing in the garbage. Give up, quit, whatever you want to say. I have the capacity to work extremely hard and I have the capacity to be mind-bogglingly lazy, and somehow being lazy makes me way more stressed. My thought pattern goes somewhat like this:

This is like the hundredth game of hearts you've played on your iPod today. What the heck are you doing with your life? You hate being on technology so much. Why are you doing it? You're a lazy, ignorant, stupid person getting stupider by the minute by rotting your brain away with that device!
Well, I don't even care. I'm going to just keep on rotting away my brain then. And well I'm decomposing I might as well eat as much unhealthy food as I can find! And not pack for tomorrow because screw my future self!

Yeah, my brain isn't always a fun place to hang out in.

It's also how funny how quickly I vacillate between "You've failed so badly it's not even worth doing anything at this point" and "It's not so bad, you can still get stuff done today". It's like a motivational battle waging high-speed war in my brain and it drives me nuts. I wish I could shut that stupid little failure voice inside of me up forever. I think I'd get so much more done.

I also kind of want to throw my iPod out the window and never see it again, but then I couldn't play virtual hearts and lose at virtual hearts dozens of times so ...

Resolution for the crazy busy next three days: Take it one moment at a time. Do my best for each moment, and if I fail, that's a momentary failure, not an entire day failure. Also, do not buy so much candy at the canteen and stop playing so many games on my iPod. And practice more. And don't forget rehearsals and memorizing all your music and...

There I go again.