Planet Megan: Hakuna Matata

Hey y'all, how you doin? (not quite sure why I turned American there)

Anyway, today I just wanted to write about something that I'm sure a lot of people have experienced, will experience and maybe are experiencing right now, and that's pressure.

I've been feeling a whole lot of pressure lately, seeing as I'm in my penultimate (ooh fancy word alert) year of high school. This has come in the form of my parents wanting me to do well, teacher's expecting me to get amazing marks and even peers making me feel like I am expected to do well. Don't get me wrong I love my friends, but some of them are extremely clever and two just casually got 100% for the maths test we got back today, which is amazing of course and I don't want to hold them down at all. And it's not like they would shame me if I only get a B, it's more about me feeling inadequate and feeling like I should be doing so much better. In fact, it's not always the people around me expecting great things from me, but more often than not I put too much pressure on myself. Last night I was up until the early hours of the morning working, and the sleep deprivation doesn't at all help my state: what with the stress, the pressure and expectation and the lack of sleep put together I feel incredibly fragile, like I'm going to crack any second.

But anyway, that was a whole lot of ramble so I completely understand if you skipped over that paragraph, but long story short I've felt extremely stressed and under pressure lately, and I've decided I want to change that.

So of course, I have turned to the one and only Lion King for help.

I mean, how can you not love the Lion King? It's got everything: great songs, talking animals, a little bit of tragedy. There's even a couple of life lessons thrown in there. But I want to focus on one song in particular, and that is - yep, you guessed it - Hakuna Matata.

The other day when I was in a moment of complete stress and panic about my workload this song popped into my head again out of the blue - I mean, I haven't watched Lion King for aaages. But anyway, I started singing this song to myself and honestly, I immediately felt much less stressed.

Now, music is an integral (fancy word alert 2 - I am on a roll today!) part of my life and has been for literally as long as I can remember so I don't know if other people rely on music as much as I do, but I always listen to or music or play the piano if I am feeling down. And this song is a perfect booster - I don't know what it is about the song but I find that I just can't listen to it without singing/dancing along (provided I am not in a public place) and immediately it's like all the stress and pressure just dissolves and I can just let it all go. And I just think, sure, there's always going to be something I have to do: an essay I have to write or a test I have to study for, but for now, right this second, I'm going to let myself breathe, pretend that I have no worries, like the song says.

The Lion King makes me think of nature and of course, the circle of life, and I just think in the grand scheme of things, how important is this tiny little thing I'm worrying about? That maths test that perhaps I didn't do so well in, that I put so much pressure on myself to do well in, though it seemed like such a big thing at the time, it doesn't really mean that much at the end of the day. And of course, I'm not saying don't take anything seriously because there are things that you do need to work hard to achieve, but that doesn't mean you have to build up so much stress that you crack under the pressure.

So here is my challenge to you: if you're feeling stressed, worried or under pressure try just singing this song (though maybe in your head if there are people around) and it may just help you to relax and smile a little. I don't know, it might not work for everyone, but it sure does for me!

And that is about all I have to say, except I hope you enjoyed this blogpost and it maybe even helped you a little in some way. Let me know in the comments if you have any ways you personally use to deal with stress and pressure!

And so I shall leave you with this wonderful video and I hope it brightens your day :)