All About Pressure

If there's one thing in this world that I easily yield to, it is pressure. Pressure of studying for a subject that I don't enjoy. Pressure of committing myself to a responsibility that I don't know, in the first place, what to do with the goings-on of the matter. Pressure of waking up early in the morning, panting of stress and disdain, to attend a class on the technicalities of, say, radio, even though I don't see myself landing a job on such in the not-so-distant future. Pressure of taking good care of myself by taking the doctor's prescription of medicine, gulping down plenty of water to avoid the risks of any urinary tract infection, and forgetting the old habit of wolfing down almost all available food in the refrigerator, just to satisfy my insatiable need for fullness.

Pressure of doing a bunch of paperwork, given two days before the deadline, about the styles and structures of essays by Filipino writers in English, which I am obligated to present in front of the class without any certainty if whether what I've done and the way I've critique them is the proper way of doing it. Pressure of all seven academic requirements--like packs of reading materials, loads of reviews and papers about sheer randomness of whatnot, a bevy of contacts to connect with just for the sake of surviving life, etc.-- that should be accomplished in a short, short span of three days. Pressure of giving and bleeding out all my best in school, to fulfill both what I expect of myself and what is being expected from me as well.

Pressure of keeping the friendships--both old and new--because, above anything else, they are still the ones that make me happy at the end of a daily grind. Pressure of being nice, jolly, ebullient, and forever enthusiastic to the people whom I meet in whatever ways and days of life, since I was taught about the benefits of proper interpersonal relationships. Pressure of avoiding any distractions, like love life, because I still have my own goals to attend to, thus, I believe, avoiding any romantic relationships. Pressure of remaining sane, amidst the complexities of life, because life, it is preached, is just about surviving and living.

Pressure of scrimping on my weekly budget, since I am always being reminded by my mother about the financial plague that has been whipping humanity in years. Pressure of not buying the things that I don't really need, in spite of thinking otherwise. Pressure of convincing myself that what I deem as my needs are really unnecessary in life, as of the moment. Pressure of freezing my hands from itching whenever I enter a bookstore, to spare my hard-saved money from sheer squandering for books that, now I realize, are just staling in the bookshelf.

Pressure of changing myself from being an insignificant existentialist to a justified humanitarian socialist, especially now when all the people in the world are facing the verges of deterioration, famine, poverty, and sickness. Pressure of assessing my values and morals from time to time, because, despite the changes of life's terrain, of the body's geography, of the mind's ideologies, I am still--as the parents always nudge me about--the old, provincial boy who is grounded in the teachings of a purely conservative family.

Pressure of exerting all of my best on the job that I said yes to, for I still believe in the quality of service that one should be rendering to people, most especially when the people that one serves to dish out a huge, unfathomable amount of money. Pressure of managing both time and my own self, my patience and my intolerance toward someone who, in the first place, I really don't care at all, to content myself with the dedication that I proffer and, mostly, to cajole myself that I can be--this I say with condescension--the 'best' tutor that I can be.

Pressure of not giving up with all the things that confound me, because giving up means another form of sadness, another type of failure (or courage, perhaps?), another kind of starting, which I am totally afraid of, or maybe not prepared for, not just because of the ambivalence that beginnings often bring, but also because I don't know if there's something good to pick up and start with in the first place. Pressure of making myself strong, resilient, possible of bouncing back from the tribulations that intermittently prick me, like needles. Pressure of charting another self in times of looseness, in times of unfamiliarity, in times of muffled lines and confusing identities. Pressure of getting a life, enjoying it, and living it like nothing has gone down the drain.

Pressure of living the life that I want to have without stepping on somebody else's shoes, so to speak. Pressure of giving myself freely without any inhibitions and prohibitions from the persons-that-be. Pressure of having myself whole, loved, cared for, without any governing details of why and how. Pressure of savoring life in its general sense, with no specifics, no nitpicking, no critical limitations--of letting it be...life.

Simply put, pressure of avoiding pressure itself.