It's not that nothing went wrong
Yesterday, I sat at my desk at work, devouring the almonds and fruit snacks my boss keeps in the office for emergencies. I was tired, and hungry, and cranky. I hadn't had breakfast and I didn't have a lunch packed, so other than those almonds, I wasn't going to get to eat until 4:30pm, all because I had overslept and woke up 20 minutes before my class that's a 20 minute walk away.
I have seen so many blog posts and article with helpful tips on how to keep your life in order. Every professor has a spiel on what you're doing wrong, why they have no sympathy for you falling asleep in class or not having completed your homework, and what you should be doing to have an easier time as a student and not get in these pickles.
The problem is that, on paper, I am a perfect student. My room walls are covered with schedules, and planning is my favorite thing in the world. I do homework before anything else. I am up early and I go to bed at a reasonable time. I do everything I am told to do, and yet, I still end up eating emergency almonds at work.
Here's the fact of the matter, and a little piece of wisdom I'd like to give you, whether you're a freshman or an upperclassman who is struggling and wondering why you still don't have it figured out. Heck, this is probably good for people out of school too, because jobs and parenting are hard.
It doesn't matter if you train your body to wake up naturally at 6am, if you plan your meals a month ahead of time, if you keep a detailed planner with everything that's expected of you written down, if you make a to-do list every night, if you get your homework done two days early, if you go go to bed at 9pm. Despite all of your best efforts, there will still be days in which your body declares it needs 12 hours of sleep and sleeps through your alarm. There will still be days in which your hair will stand straight up and refuse to do anything else and you're forced to wear a bandanna all day. There will still be a day in which someone dumps an hour and a half of work on your desk 40 minutes before you're supposed to leave for the day and says they need it today, and in which you'll proudly hand in your essay only to discover there was a worksheet that was supposed to go with it. In short, there will still be days in which you find yourself eating emergency almonds.
Now, before you write me off as a pessimist, let me get to the important part.
To quote Merrily We Roll Along, it's not that nothing went wrong, but we got a good thing going.
I'm pretty proud of myself for how organized I am, and usually my hard work pays off, and when it doesn't I can at least say with complete confidence that I tried my best. And besides, yesterday may have been an emergency almond sort of day, but in the end, thank God for bosses who keep emergency almonds on hands. Thank God for people who may ask a lot of you, but do it because they believe you can do it and praise you when it's done well. Thank God for frozen pizzas, and hot showers, and roommates who will wash and dry dishes with you, laughing and gossiping the whole time.
Adulting is hard and the best laid plans tend to fall through, but all in all, I think I've got a pretty good thing going.
I have seen so many blog posts and article with helpful tips on how to keep your life in order. Every professor has a spiel on what you're doing wrong, why they have no sympathy for you falling asleep in class or not having completed your homework, and what you should be doing to have an easier time as a student and not get in these pickles.
The problem is that, on paper, I am a perfect student. My room walls are covered with schedules, and planning is my favorite thing in the world. I do homework before anything else. I am up early and I go to bed at a reasonable time. I do everything I am told to do, and yet, I still end up eating emergency almonds at work.
Here's the fact of the matter, and a little piece of wisdom I'd like to give you, whether you're a freshman or an upperclassman who is struggling and wondering why you still don't have it figured out. Heck, this is probably good for people out of school too, because jobs and parenting are hard.
It doesn't matter if you train your body to wake up naturally at 6am, if you plan your meals a month ahead of time, if you keep a detailed planner with everything that's expected of you written down, if you make a to-do list every night, if you get your homework done two days early, if you go go to bed at 9pm. Despite all of your best efforts, there will still be days in which your body declares it needs 12 hours of sleep and sleeps through your alarm. There will still be days in which your hair will stand straight up and refuse to do anything else and you're forced to wear a bandanna all day. There will still be a day in which someone dumps an hour and a half of work on your desk 40 minutes before you're supposed to leave for the day and says they need it today, and in which you'll proudly hand in your essay only to discover there was a worksheet that was supposed to go with it. In short, there will still be days in which you find yourself eating emergency almonds.
Now, before you write me off as a pessimist, let me get to the important part.
To quote Merrily We Roll Along, it's not that nothing went wrong, but we got a good thing going.
I'm pretty proud of myself for how organized I am, and usually my hard work pays off, and when it doesn't I can at least say with complete confidence that I tried my best. And besides, yesterday may have been an emergency almond sort of day, but in the end, thank God for bosses who keep emergency almonds on hands. Thank God for people who may ask a lot of you, but do it because they believe you can do it and praise you when it's done well. Thank God for frozen pizzas, and hot showers, and roommates who will wash and dry dishes with you, laughing and gossiping the whole time.
Adulting is hard and the best laid plans tend to fall through, but all in all, I think I've got a pretty good thing going.
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