Stress Case

Stress is completely personal and no two people experience stress the same. Two people may be stressed out by different things that have various impacts on them. With this fact, it is impossible for a person to feel how someone else is feeling; we can only understand or imagine the strain that someone else could be under. Different age groups have different types and amounts of stresses. The stress of a child is very minimal, as their world is not within their control or even on their mind. Parents have a difficult time raising children and continuing to live their own lives. The young adult has questionably the most amount of stress. The young adult is figuring out what they want to do with their lives, while trying their best to stay afloat. The delanceyplace archives states: "The average high schooler today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950s" (Clark, 2011). Young adults does include teenagers to people in their mid-twenties. This category of people most likely stress about one of the most difficult and intimidating topics. This topic is unavoidable by all functioning members of society because nearly everyone will encounter financial challenges. Financial challenges can be one of the worst stressors that most people can encounter in their lives. Some feel strangled and tied down because of the high costs and small pockets. The young adult of first world countries does not has the skinniest of wallets, but definitely has the largest and most menacing costs. These costs can be devastating monsters that leave undeserving victims crippled and left for dead. I hypothesize that financial challenges are limiting and thus altering the decisions and lives of middle-class young adults in first world countries. Everyone has their own kryptonite, the young adults may be the largest of financial challenges; education, employment, housing and transportation.

In the past, children of families stayed home and often left school at the age of thirteen+ to support and raise siblings. It was not abnormal for a thirteen year old girl to take care and mother for her three younger siblings while their parents were both at work. Throughout the years, the importance of education has exponentially grown. As people realized and increased the importance of an education, children started to stay in educational institutions longer. The increase in education meant that there was an opportunity for institutions to capitalize on such a demand. This is when universities increased enrollment costs. With action there is a reaction; student loans were used to combat high fees and to increase the likelihood of an education. Tuition fees, books, residency, transportation and loans quickly became all too much for most families and despite all of their efforts, a post-secondary was too far out of reach: "the price of attending a four-year public university, which has increased by 250% in the last thirty years"