Hey, Profs!
First of all, to those of you who are still preparing for finals; good luck. To those of you who have completed all your course requirements and are currently kick starting your summer, congratulations! But fear not, if you belong to the former crowd; the end is near. You just have to hold on a little longer. In fact, holding on a little longer is what will bring us into this week’s Little Life Lesson.
Who here remembers the Nickelodeon show Big Time Rush, and their oh so wonderful song “Any Kind of Guy,” which made every girl wish they were singing to her? Well, let’s take it back to 2010, and remember this song for a moment. Am I about to talk to you about changing yourself for someone else? Heck no, I’m about to take one small line from the song and make it into this week’s Little Life Lesson.
“I gotta keep believin’, that everything takes time.”
Figured it out yet? This week, we are discussing patience!
Whether you are working towards; losing weight, earning an outstanding GPA, obtaining that dream job you’ve sought after for years, or securing that love life, you need to remember that nothing happens overnight.
I can almost promise you that if you keep your faith, try hard, and have a little patience, your dreams will come true. And yes, maybe those dreams will not be what you expected them to be, but if you work hard, you will see results and find yourself in a better place. But no matter how hard you work, you can’t beat the clock.
In life, there are always shortcuts. But the fact that it is a shortcut means more than it cuts your waiting time in half; it also means that it makes you fall short of what you could have had. A short cut is a short stop, a short coming, and short lasting. Let’s reflect back on the analogy of losing weight. Everyone knows that a crash diet that guarantees the loss of ten pounds in a month doesn’t work. Sure, you may lose a few pounds, but that satisfaction will be short lived and you will gain that weight back – and more. It works better if you work hard and let the magic that is time do its thing.
If you take a shortcut on an assignment, yes – you will spend less time actually working on the assignment. But first of all, you will not learn anything. Second, what if you get caught – which you probably will? You risk losing a lot more than the time you would have lost working on the assignment in the beginning. Say you don’t get caught, and the shortcut you took leads you to a bigger and better opportunity; you will not be prepared for it because you arrived there using a shortcut. Again, you’re better off using time wisely, accepting that success will not take place overnight, and working hard to achieve that which you desire.
If you try to shortcut your way into the real world and a real job by embellishing your resume, you will feel the shortcomings – literally. Say you state on your resume that you are skilled at handling finances, because you once managed to go a month without splurging on items at the mall. Putting this as a skill on your resume will lead employers to believe you really are skilled in specific fields, and they will entrust you with a job – a job which, if you don’t complete, will be taken away from you just as quickly as it came to you. See? More short comings, as a result of a shortcut. Instead, actually spend your time working to enhance your marketable skills and building your resume – the time invested will be well worth it.
If you are looking for love; please hold out a little longer. You are such a wonderful, kind, and beautiful soul who doesn’t deserve to lose out on love. But if you use a shortcut like hooking up with the first attractive person you meet, or trying to rekindle old flames that blew out long ago, you will end up hurt. Stay patient, and love will find its way to you.
If your problems fall in a category outside of these examples, the same applies to you. Working hard and waiting for your success to pay off is always better in the long run compared to skipping ahead of the curb. Tomorrow is a brighter day.
Do you remember back in middle school and the early years of high school, when the smallest fight between your friends would make your world collapse in on you? Do you remember when you were lying in your bed, awake until 3am dreaming of a better tomorrow? A tomorrow when things will be better and a tomorrow when the wait will have been worth it? Well, right now you are in that tomorrow. And you are on the threshold of even better tomorrows; all you have to do is remember to be patient, because everything really does take time.