I have the jumbo-size Lilly Pulitzer agenda, color-coded with eight different pens, and with a two-sided looseleaf to-do list taped inside the front cover. Excessive might be an understatement, but my logic was that if I had to shell out some cash to buy a good quality planner, I might as well get the most bang for my buck and get the largest one, to make sure that I had enough room to write everything down. Using deductive reasoning here, you can assume I have a pretty packed schedule.
Like everyone who has gotten into Boston College, I was busy in high school. I was busy freshman year, sophomore year, and now junior year. I’m the girl who has a minimum of seven sticky notes on my desktop screen at all times and three successive lunch dates. I keep my to-do list out during class, just in case I remember something else that has to be done before the end of the day.
That was, until the breaking point.
This semester, I (again, like everyone else) was taking five classes, working at the Plex, fulfilling my responsibilities as an E-Board member for the Marching Band, and training for the Boston Marathon. I was also planning a joint 21st birthday party for me and two other girls, and writing for Her Campus (obviously). Unlike anyone else, or so I thought, I felt like I was drowning. Constantly planning my own social life and the social activities for the Band, as well as working, working out, and doing schoolwork was starting to drag me down. I was two days ahead of the reading in all my classes, but understanding none of it. I was in the best shape of my life, but fending off feelings of inadequacy and unhappiness regarding nutrition, fitness, and food. I injured my knee on Superbowl Sunday and hadn’t worked out since. Housing drama reared its ugly head. Something had to give.
First, it was my hardest class: withdrawing only four days after the deadline to drop was mildly discouraging on its own, but in the big picture it was something that had to be done. I had feelings of guilt surrounding “giving up” and admitting defeat, but in only three days I started feeling much better. In my struggle to write a paper for that class over the weekend, I had forgotten about the exam in another class on the same day. By leaving the class that gave me stress, I was able to get back on top of the workload for my other courses. Luckily, I had summer credits to cover the deficiency, but even if I hadn’t, I would have made the same decision.
Next, it was the training. With an injury that hadn’t gone away by the end of spring break, and a poor, borderline disordered, mental attitude surrounding food and exercise, I was in no shape to run the Boston Marathon. But I held on, saying that it would just take some hard work and a few more long runs, until the Campus School announced they would be running the Bandit Marathon instead. While I still feel guilty about choosing not to run because it’s not “Marathon Monday,” and about the Campus School students who could have greatly used the money I raised, I’m okay with it. Had I not listened to my body, I would have started the race in Hopkinton on the 13th, and fizzled out long before reaching mile 21.
The other crises are not as big a deal: had they been happening alone, and not in conjunction with school and training, I would have been able to plow through them. Ever since I was little, my dad has always told me that if you feel down—if you’ve been dumped or gotten in a fight with a friend, or gotten a bad grade—just hit the Stairmaster or jog for thirty minutes, and read a book or do an assignment, and you’ll feel loads better. He’s right. Accomplishing a chapter’s worth of textbook readings and getting a thirty-minute endorphin high is all you really need. But my problem was that I had taken on too much, and the relief I had once gotten from those activities had turned into my biggest stressor.
I noticed, as I responded to the “How Are You” and the “How Are You Doing” and even the “Is Everything Okay, You Look a Bit Down” that all I kept saying was “I’m okay, I’m just really busy.” I let busy become my identity, like so many others. I listened as midterms came around, and people started trying to one-up my busyness; my admission of stress gave them permission to tell me about their eighteen papers, three exams, five parties, and four housing complaints that were all culminating, like, five minutes ago, or something.
I’m not sure I know the answer to “Why have we let this happen to ourselves?” But I know the answer to “What can we do about this culture of busyness that has prevented our happiness?” Stop it. Stop scheduling, stop penciling in, stop feeling pressure to be on the move.
Relax, take a deep breath, and binge watch every season of Law and Order if it makes you happy. Sure, you’re going to have to write that paper eventually, but you can sit in bed and do nothing every once in a while too. Some “me time” will do us all a load of good.
Photo Sources:
http://www.theschooloflife.com/assets/Uploads/Mindfulness-and-Living-a-Busy-Life.jpg
http://fearlessmen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/work-and-life.jpg
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