I hate pressure.
I hate pressure so much that I do whatever it takes to avoid it, consequences be damned.
The pressure to have a really awesome personal site as a web developer kept me from ever making one.
The pressure to be the kinda guy that girls would wanna date kept me from appreciating myself, quirks and all.
The pressure to live up to people’s expectations kept me from thinking critically about what I was doing and if it really made sense to me.
Pressure inflates certain points and downplays others. It becomes so much harder to make clear-headed rational decisions when it matters most.
“Dude, you can’t get diamonds without pressure”
Fuck diamonds, fuck pressure and fuck you too.
You do have a point though.
Pressure pushes us accomplish things we would never have, under normal circumstances.
I’m not saying pressure is stupid or pointless. It’s definitely made me more aware of how much further out my real boundaries are.
Even when I fail to overcome it, I still learn valuable lessons.
After years of being overwhelmed by the pressure for an awesome site, I learned that waiting for things to be perfect isn’t worth it.
Conditions not being perfect don’t put me under pressure anymore.
I never became the guy I thought girls would want, but I learned that some girls like me for who I am, and it’s much better to be in a pressure-free relationship than to continually struggle to live up to arbitrary expectations.
When you overcome pressure, you expand your limits. When you cave to it, you learn about yourself. As frustrating as it is, it definitely has its benefits.
I guess the best way to summarize this is “fuck pressure but embrace it”.