By Patrick Glenn ’16

Does it bother you that people just don’t stop complaining about their workload and school related activities? With all the activities that student bombarding themselves with, there are very few who are approaching their studies and extracurriculars with a more manageable outlook. I, personally, have had it up to here (my hand is up really high) with people constantly venting about how much “stuff” they have to do.

Let’s get this straight: We all have hours of school work, sports and other after school activities on our to-do list. However, these are all choices made by OURSELVES. We are the ones who decide to flood our schedules with hours upon hours of work, so let’s not pretend that someone else made these decisions for us. It’s time to put the ownership on ourselves and take on our responsibilities. Of course, there is outside pressure, whether it be siblings, parents or other people in our lives that add an undo burden through expectations. However, it’s always been my experience that the greatest pressure upon the shoulders of high school students and people in general is the one they put on themselves.

So, I won’t rant, I won’t go off on a tangent talking about how we shouldn’t be stressing for (ultimately) meaningless assignments and assessments, and say how it will all in the end work out. But I will give some words of encouragement and soft suggestions.

We are, as a collective student body, highly motivated and driven to reach our short term and long term objectives. Whether that be acing a midterm, building up a resume, or achieving acceptance into a highly competitive university, we all have goals in mind that we strive for each and every day. These goals are important for keeping us on track, giving us an attainable objective to help us remain focused. Unfortunately, there is a flipside to this ultra motivated methodology: We become too high strung and every little assessment becomes the be-all-end-all of our high school careers.

Let me return to my original point, which is that people complain far too much about the volume of assigned work they are given. We all need to recognize that while this work is important for our academic success, our sanity is more important. Forgive me for sounding too preachy, for I myself need to follow my own advice. I’m just trying to preserve the psyche of every GPA obsessed, resume beefer-upper (if that’s not a word, now it is). So, work hard in class, build up a respectable body of work, but don’t ruin yourself in the process. Have faith that a few poor marks and disappointments won’t ruin your chances for prosperity.