Is This Real?

As soon to be Oak Hill High School graduates we all know putting in the work to get there was important. Without getting your assignments in, it can not happen. Now if you’re anything like me you have no interest in doing that. I can not remember a time I was 100% caught up on all my school work since I began attending high school. As you can imagine, this has become a problem maybe once or twice. Balance and moderation are essential to life and without the two life tends to go wayward. Maybe that sounds ironic coming from me, and I totally get it, but it also means I have plenty examples of what not to do when attempting to maintain balance in your life.

In my experience, you need two things to maintain this kind of structure. The first being time management, and the second being commitment. Now I’m not going to go off about how to best properly manage your time or how to never lose your commitment, but instead I want to talk about how lacking them may be harmful. Time management is one of those things I believe everyone understands to be an important and essential piece of life, that is everyone but myself. I’ve spent countless days each year focusing on seemingly everything besides school work. Since day one of freshman year the most thought I put into time management was “oh I have four years to do all this work so I’ll be fine if I don’t quite do it right away.” Naturally, repeating this over and over, time after time,  resulted in summer and vacation school classes pretty much every time they were available.  I mean what can I say, slope and solitaire were clearly more important than whatever assignment I was being nagged about. Instead I’d with hubris tell myself  that I will figure it out when the time comes. Luckily due to the lax nature of Oak Hill High School, I was able to do so, but let me tell you I would be screwed if I was at any school with proper mid terms or finals. While it’s true I just barely made it through high school and onto the graduation stage, my lack of time management means I have spent way more nights doing hundreds of membean minutes, late assignment after late assignment, and rushing leading to lackluster work I end up having to re do. This past week alone just scrambling to finish the last couple things I need to graduate has been more stressful than my entire k through 12 journey when that never had to be the case. My hope is to learn from these mistakes, as there is value in every single one. In all future endeavors I will strive to perfect my time management and create the most productive life I could possibly manage. 

I will strive to remain committed to my goals, as the only thing that prevents success is quitting. Life holds temptation in all colors and sizes, and avoiding it is impossible. It looks different for everyone, and not without exceptions, it is all essentially the same. It is there to test us. I believe a candy bar on your bed in prison symbolizes the relationship between temptation and commitment best. The candy bar is an image of temptation. If you give in and eat the candy bar, you will suffer the consequences. It is not an uncommon practice for seasoned inmates to give new inmates a candy bar, the candy bar is nothing sinister, but the debt you owe the person for taking the candy bar is. That debt is your consequence as it will be taken seriously. By taking the candy you are agreeing to owe a favor to whoever gave it to you, this favor can be as serious as murder. Giving in to your temptations while ignoring your commitment works similar because, comparably to the candy bar, it’s sweet and enjoyable, but only temporarily and what could come as a result to your actions later can easily be much worse than it seems.

“The LAZER DIM 700 Interview Still (cropped)” by Aux Cable Label is licensed under CC BY 3.0.