The Weight We All Carry

Most of the time what a lot of people usually say always makes me laugh very hard, especially when someone who is yet to be exposed to the reality of life keeps saying that he wants a life that is free from stress. In my mind I usually say, Only a dead man is free from stress, because in my country, to even cross a dual-lane road, one needs to look left and right because some reckless drivers might decide to disobey, which might increase someone's blood pressure. A stress-free life looks very beautiful, but at the same time, not totally possible. With my few experiences in architecture, I have discovered that every drawing starts with a rough sketch. From deadlines to sleepless nights to catching up. Stress is like a support system that upholds our vision until we see a meaningful result. Because as architects and as humans, nothing meaningful can come out of our lives without pressure being involved somewhere. Like one of my favorite Nigerian artists said, "Sometimes great just needs a little pressure" .jpg) But the reality of this is that no matter how we do it, we cannot avoid stress; we just have to find our ways around it. For me to even come up with what to write concerning this prompt requires deep thoughts, which is mentally stressful. And let me use people in Lagos as an example because I have once experienced that life. According to what one of my friends who is an actor said, he wakes up very early in the morning, around 3-4 a.m., just to get to the shooting venue on time, then he manages to get back home around 11-12 p.m. That has been his daily routine, and during the weekend, he will this manage to turn up for a ceremony or party if there's one. That is the life and example of a topical person living in my country. Stress is always around us, and we have learned how to manage it without throwing ourselves away. I once told myself that I also want a stress-free life, but with the look of things, I have decided to create my own inner peace by not overdoing things, listening to music, drinking warm water every time I wake up, going for a walk to ease myself of thoughts, and taking a cold shower or warm, depending on the weather, before going to bed. Those things might not totally take stress away, but at least they allow me to breathe again as a human. .jpg) If you hear someone say they do not want to be involved in stress, that means they are too lazy to grow, because even in agriculture, if I can remember right, they call it photosynthesis, where a grown plant grows in the direction of the sun no matter how rocky the ground might look. Maybe at the end of the day, we all need stress to grow, because someone once said, nothing good comes easy, and even Jesus had to pass through stress to die for the sin of the world. And this has made me realize that to make everything better, stress is always involved. --- Thank you for reading. > _{Images created by MetaAi}