Another Day, Another Dread

One of the most distinct features of high school is the workload. Ask most high school students an issue that they face and they will most likely respond that they are stressed with all of their schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and social life. Luckily, I don’t have a social life, so I was spared that source of stress. But, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t crushed by the burdensome weight of stress either. This begs the question: how did I handle the insurmountable stress?

To be honest, I didn’t deal with it. It destroyed me. However, I did manage to survive, so this will be my survival story with handling stress. Years filled with deadlines, excessive planning and fretful projects have defined my existence at Sherwood, and (if I’m honest) I haven’t always been on top of things or gotten everything done. But, for the sake of time, I won’t write about my failures. Instead, I’ll write about one of the most important skills I’ve acquired, and hopefully you’ll learn too.

I now know that planning and a schedule is integral to maintaining one’s sanity. A short term game plan will always help you. A good metaphor for this is sailing. With a charted course/plan, you can easily navigate and traverse the waters to where you need to go. If you don’t plan a little, you’ll easily get swept by the tides of life onto a potentially abandoned island like the one in Lord of the Flies. And, no one wants to end up on a psychedelic trip talking to a pig’s head on an island. Good planning can help to avoid that.

As French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said, “A goal without a plan is a wish” and wishes don’t get you anything (that’s right, Disney lied to you). So, take my advice: stop wishing and make a plan, it’ll help in the future and you won’t be stranded on an island with the worst creatures on earth: prepubescent boys.