Stress In Where Men Win Glory And The Perks Of Being A Wallflower

Stress has probably existed for as long as mankind has. You would commonly hear someone say “I am under so much stress” and that they are very stressed out, but what is stress exactly? I believe that stress is a feeling of being under a lot of pressure, having a huge burden on your shoulders. Everyone handles and thinks of stress differently in many ways with different kinds of remedies and solutions. Some people tend to let the stress get to them and can get very emotional about it. Others can handle it very well and stay calm and work well with it. All in all, everyone has different ways of dealing with stress, including Pat Tillman from Where Men Win Glory and Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower, in which Tillman deals with his …show more content…
Whether it be quitting his football career to join the army or the fight at the Round Table, he seems to deal with it very calm and positively. For example, Tillman was under a lot of stress when he was in the army. He was under the stress of being famous and quitting his NFL career to join the army. Not to mention, the sergeants had to do their best to not show her any kind of favoritism whatsoever. “The drill sergeants bent over backwards not to show favoritism toward him...Pat just tried to be the best soldier he could. Whenever he was told to do something, he executed it… If there is one thing certain about stress, and about despair, it’s that it will inevitably show who you really are. And the amazing thing about Pat is that the despair and stress never revealed anything ugly about him… But Pat was restrained. He had fortitude.” (Krakauer, 110) This goes to show that Tillman handled pressure very well in a very positive manner. Regardless of the situation he was in, he just tried to be the best person he could be and did what he had to do. Not to mention, Tillman was also under the stress of the consequences after the Round Table fight, in which he had to face the harsh reality of what would happen to him and his future because of his actions. “Were Pat to be found guilty, the conviction would have an enormous impact on his future… he tried not to worry too much about what might happen...He was sort of like, ‘Okay, I’ll …show more content…
I want to handle stress in a positive manner and not negatively. It is bad to have negative thoughts while handling stress, for it can cause bad thoughts, such as self harm and suicide. From personal experience, there was a time in which I handled the stress I had in a poor manner. Senior year, I was burdened from the stress of having to deal with my brother who was ill in the hospital, my father with an income that could not help support the family, and a mother who was not understanding of the situation we were going through and blame the entire family’s problems on me. I felt as if my world was crumbling apart and truly believed that I was the cause to the family’s problems. This stress burdened me so much I simply broke. I skipped school and cried my eyes out and let my grades in school drop. I dealt with this stress similarly to Charlie, in which I tried to avoid the problem and not tell anyone. With this, I only realized that it was not going to help the situation and it could not improve. It was not until I went to seek professional help from the school therapist to help me deal with my stress. I personally wish I could have been like Tillman, who dealt with his stress positively and head on. If I had done so, I could have improved the relationship and problems within my family