People always ask me how I’m able to continue reading “for fun” during the whirlwind of what is university. I’m constantly asked how I can still make my way through novel after novel during the year, even when all the textbook readings are piling up. To those people, I always say, “It’s not hard. I just set aside even 15 minutes for it every day.” I figured out this trick at the tail end of first semester in my second year; all you have to do is set out 10 or 15 or 20 minutes of your day to do something (for me, that’s reading) and over time, you actually can see so much progress. If you spend 10 minutes reading 10 pages of a book each day, in 10 days, you can get through 100 pages. It’s really not hard to do, but you do have to carve out that time for yourself.
In university, especially when you’re in a small-town and you feel so enveloped by the bubble at Queen’s, it’s hard to do little things for yourself here and there. You’re too busy caught up in group meetings, assignments, or even the hard-to-resist pull of wanting to see friends in every spare moment you get. When the peak of the semester hits and you find yourself sacrificing sleep just to finish an assignment or a reading, finding this time for yourself becomes even harder. How can I let myself sit down and read for 10 minutes when I already don’t have enough time in the day as it is?
There’s this quote that I love about meditating written by Dr. Sukhraj Dhillon. It goes, “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day – unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”
I think this really showcases the necessity of creating time, even when you think you have none. The same should go for all of our hobbies, our passions, and the little self-care things we want to do but never get a chance to.
When I was in first year, I met up with an upper year for lunch and we were talking about the craziness of school, and how insane things can get. She was telling me about her friend in our program who would often just block off an hour or two of the week for personal time (what she used the time for I didn’t know). If her groups wanted to schedule a meeting during that same time, she would say that she had an appointment, or that she was unavailable. I know that some of you might be thinking that that’s not the right thing to do, but I thought it was admirable. I thought, “Wow, there’s really a girl who values her own time (even if it’s just an hour or two) and values her own well-being.” It might be selfish, but I think that with the hustle and bustle of our lives, every now and then, we need to be selfish so as not to lose the ability to do the things we want to do.
So, since then, what I find helpful to do is something along the same lines. I like blocking off time in my schedule at the start of the week for these things – a yoga class at night, time to write on a Sunday evening, or time to grab a coffee with a friend in the morning before class. That way it’s in the calendar, and it’s on the back of my mind. I know that if I don’t do these things, I’ll keep saying to myself, “I’ll do it when there’s a better time.” I think we’ve all had enough experience at university to know that there never really is a better week, or a better time when things really begin to slow down. And so, even when it feels like your schedule and your deadlines are eating you up, you need to make time for it. You absolutely have to make time for it.
Because if YOU don’t prioritize it, other people sure as hell are not going to FOR you Instead, it will just be forgotten and tossed aside.