With youth: How do I cope with the stress of future?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question (Q): How do I cope with the stress that is likely to come in the next four years?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Let’s understand this situation right now.

(Acharya Ji is talking to the first-year students of a premier Engineering institution in India. The duration of the entire course is four years).

Are you all stressed right now?

Listeners (L): No.

AP: You aren’t. But there is a thought of stress already building up. There is the (emphasizing the word ‘thought’) thought of stress. Are you getting it?

Several of you are listening quite attentively. Aren’t you? Is there any stress? But now if in this moment I run a movie here that shows the kind of stress some engineering and medical students have experienced in the past, then you will be stressed out. Right? So, what is stress?

Q: It is the workload, the pressure that one takes upon oneself.

AP: How?

Q: Take any situation. The situation may be easy, but we make it difficult by developing some pressure.