Focus (on Drugs) (draft1)

The sun just came up and your alarm is buzzing. You have to get up and go work. Your life depends on it. You haven’t had enough sleep but you need to get your work done. Who knows what will happen if you do not get your work done. The entire system will fall apart. Well, at least you think so. You have to focus on your job. Stop getting distracted. Go get your assignment and… oh look its Alondra. Gotta be smooth, “Hey Alondra um crazy weekend right?” No reply. I guess maybe she did not hear me. Oh Wait I have to go work!

            Do you lack the focus to get through your five day nine? Are you having difficulty completing your assignments or even sitting still? Ask your doctor if Adderall is right for you! You will be up and about in no time. All your work will be done and you will lose that Monday morning feeling. Warning, side effects include but are not limited to moderate insomnia, dizziness, restlessness, headaches, erectile dysfunction, and in some cases the user may get focused on the wrong item or activity.

            If you go into any college one of the first drugs you will hear about is Adderall. Students talk about it all the time. Many college students take the drug to study for their finals. This might sound like the ideal drug, especially if It can make an individual have complete focus on the task at hand. However, it is not that simple. Trent Wolbe, in his essay, “How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall: A Cautionary Tale,” writes about the dark side of Adderall and the behind the scenes that people do not hear about until they are already hooked on the drug.

Adderall is indeed helpful when it comes to completing tasks or maintaining focus. However, ironically tis focus can cause distractions in other parts of your life. “I had promised myself for years that I would learn After Effects as soon as I had the free time; the chemical wave pushed me through an especially potent laziness that has always kept me from becoming the motion graphics expert I knew I wanted to be” (Wolbe). Adderall not only distracted him from his passion but ultimately the drug made him regretful about his decisions.

            Adderall may help with ADHD and similar problems but it is also highly addicting. “Just as Merck used to manufacture the best cocaine on the entire planet, Shire now produces the most reliable amphetamine money can buy. And it's good shit, so good that it sits with opium and cocaine on the USA’s List of Schedule II Controlled substances” (Wolbe). Now if a drug is being put in comparison with highly addictive drugs such as opium and cocaine, we have a problem. This is basically saying that if someone uses the drug only for studying or something like a simple task, they might think there is no harm being done. However, what they do not know is that they are becoming more and more addicted each passing day. This will reach a point where the person will not be able to turn back and quit so easily.

            Now remember that bee in the beginning? Let us put him on Adderall. That is just such an insane idea that it makes you think. The bee will be more productive than ever. However, he will have no time for anything else. His schedule would be eat, work, sleep. He would not have time for his crush, he would not enjoy his free time and he will just get more and more addicted to this. Being on Adderall is like being one of those people with no social life. Their life is revolved around work and they do not want any distractions not even their loved ones. The more you learn about Adderall, the more you dislike it. At first glance it seems perfect, but there is a huge disclaimer that comes with this illusion of perfection.

Adderall is a drug that deals with the brain and many of these types of drugs are not beneficial to the body. They can usually cause more harm than good. However, this extreme focus is not always helpful. Think about it, if you are focused on one aspect, you are missing so much more and the complete focus on one aspect will hurt other aspects. Malcolm Gladwell really goes deeper into the way people behave in stressful situations. The focus on one aspect such as looking for light on the ground can cause a loss of focus to other instruments in the plane and cause a fatal crash. This Is the exact fate of Kennedy in Gladwell’s, “The Art of Failure.”

Gladwell talks about how stressful and anxiety building events can lead to panic or choking, as it is used in sports terms. Usually both are seen as one in the same. However, the truth is they both have certain conditionals that set them apart. Having pure focus on one element while the other elements cause your downfall is the result of panic. On the other hand, losing all your skills due to the pressure put on by an event is the result of choking in that key event.

Human beings sometimes falter under pressure. Pilots crash and divers drown. Under the glare of competition, basketball players cannot find the basket and golfers cannot find the pin. When that happens, we say variously that people have “panicked” or, to use the sports colloquialism, “choked.” But what do those words mean? Both are pejoratives. To choke or panic is considered to be as bad as to quit. But are all forms of failure equal? (Gladwell)

Gladwell really makes the reader think. These are questions that everyone does not think about on a regular basis. So to see them just gets the mind churning. I am sure everyone agrees that pressure is a horrible thing. Even though, there are people that excel under pressure, most people do not. Most people fail to achieve the task at hand and end up embarrassing themselves.

            Gladwell sets up the essay in a way that draws in complete focus. See good writing can be just as good as Adderall. Gladwell also explains his answers very thoroughly in a way where choking and panicking are easily distinguished. “Under conditions of stress, however, the explicit system sometimes takes over. That’s what it means to choke. When Jana Novotna faltered at Wimbledon, it was because she began thinking about her shots again. She lost her fluidity, her touch” (Gladwell)

            Choking causes more focus on a specific aspect which is normally done without thinking. This throws all the fluidity of a person’s movements off and causes a failure in the same movements efficiency. Gladwell uses a diving example in which the person cannot breathe through one of her breathing tubes.

“Right away, my hand reached out for my partner’s air supply, as if I was going to rip it out. It was without thought. It was a physiological response. My eyes are seeing my hand do something irresponsible. I’m fighting with myself. Don’t do it. Then I searched my mind for what I could do. And nothing came to mind. All I could remember was one thing: If you can’t take care of yourself, let your buddy take care of you. I let my hand fall back to my side, and I just stood there.”

This is a textbook example of panic. In that moment, Morphew stopped thinking. She forgot that she had another source of air, one that worked perfectly well and that, moments before, she had taken out of her mouth. She forgot that her partner had a working air supply as well, which could easily be shared, and she forgot that grabbing her partner’s regulator would imperil both of them. (Gladwell)

Panic is a failure to assess the situation and perform or resort to an action or reaction that is irrational and could cause yourself, as well as those around you, harm.

            Both panic and choking result in failure. Panic causes a loss of focus and a loss of the ability to think through a situation smartly. Choking causes focus on a specific element and the loss of focus on the task at hand. Instead of trying to win the game, the person is now trying to hit the ball as hard as they can with their racquet.
            Our little bee friend just cannot win. If he is on Adderall, he has no social life and loses his crush all together and if he just comes up to her he panics and makes himself look like an idiot. However, lets say he gets on Adderall and then after a while gets rid of the addiction, he will be a new bee. He’ll be more focused but will have time for other activities. This is just the experience of Wolbe, but it sure would help out this bee. (Im not saying Adderall is good, or promoting its use…just saying).