Well, first of all stress is a feeling that everyone has inside of him. It is impossible to see and touch stress. However, we can feel it. It is hard to explain what stress looks like, or what it is. Although it is hard, I will try to explain what I know about stress. I can't tell you what it is, but I'll tell you what causes it and how it appears.

First of all, there are many kinds of stress that people have. Everybody is different from other people. Common sources of stress are from anger, sadness, and not being satisfied with something. For example, when somebody has said bad things about you, and you get angry, that is stress from anger. When somebody close to you dies, you get sad; that is another type of stress. If you get very horrible marks on your test, you will be stressed because of not getting good grades. That is another type of stress people have.

There are people who can't release their stress. As a result some people get mentally ill, or get sick and tired of what they are doing. For example, my friend is having trouble with his roommates in the dormitory. His two roommates are not thinking about his feelings. He said, "They are playing around when I am studying, and bothering me when I want to be alone." I asked him, "Why don't you tell them to stop that?" However, he is the kind of person that can't say no, because he thinks he may hurt their feelings. He is the kind of person that gets sick and gets tired about everything.

When the stress builds up, people will try to express or relieve their stress. It is good to relieve and express stress. However, it is scary how they relieve or express their stress. The murder in Kobe is a scary example of relieving stress. The boy expressed his stress by killing people. This murder shocked everybody in Japan. People realize that many young teenagers are carrying around stress with them. The young teenagers today easily get angry. This may be a good example. They are like a can of cola that was shaken a second ago and ready to explode anytime.

Second, I will tell you about stress from sadness. Have you ever cried from sadness? Have you ever cried when someone close to you died? I cried when my uncle died two years ago. I didn't realize at that time, but when I visited his house, I realized my uncle was not there. At that instant, I burst into tears. When I realized that he was gone, something inside was hurting me. I thought this was stress. I believe everyone has experienced stress caused by sadness.

For example, this May, a famous musician committed suicide. No one knew the cause of his death, but his body was found lying on the floor at his apartment. This news shocked the fans a lot. His fans cried a lot. Hundred of fans sat around outside his apartment and all cried. For some people, this news was too shocking for them. And some fans committed suicide. This suicide was caused by the stress built up inside of them. This is the example of stress of sadness. As in the example, stress can lead people to suicide. All people are different from each other. Some people can handle their stress inside, but some others can't handle their stress. Those who can't handle their stress may become mentally sick or, in a bad case, commit suicide.

Have you ever wanted to committed suicide? Have you ever wanted to die? May be some people have felt that feeling in their life once. That is the feeling from stress, which is inside of every person. People say this, "I want to die, I don't want to live any more." However, most of them are not serious.

There was a time when young children (at the age of 10 to14) committed suicide almost every day. This was a serious problem for the Japanese community. This problem testified to the fact that young children were very impressionable. The politicians wondered what the cause of this problem is. They did a lot of research about teenage kids, and the politicians now know that children these days are carrying stress around with them.

In fact, children these days easily get angry. "kireru", is the word people use today. Yes, I think people easily get "kireru"; be may there is a problem in the Japanese environment. For example, my opinion is that the people in the dormitory are getting too strict on each other. I always wonder, "Don't they get tired of being angry?" Mr.A is an example of a person who gets "kireru" easily. Mr.Y is the most impressionable person I ever met. I believe that they have a lot of stress inside of them. However, they release their stress by getting angry.

For my conclusion, stress may be some kind of disease. The stress is there between people and will always be there. The sickness and illness mostly come from stress, and the thing that causes it is our negative feelings. If feelings are the problem, we must control our temper and think before saying something first. We must start with us, if we want an environment without stress.