Saying that college can be a busy time in your life is an extreme understatement. I’ll be the first to tell you that. To be honest, looking back at my high school years, I don’t think that version of me actually knew what busy was.
At least, that’s what I’m always telling myself when I’m up way past my “bedtime,” trying to get things done that I probably should have finished a week prior.
The truth is that, sometimes, we have to take a step back. When things start getting busy and the work starts piling up, as much as we want to dive headfirst into it, we have to remember to take care of ourselves first. We’re only human, and it’s OK that we can’t get a million assignments done in one day. When things get busy, it’s important for us recognize that our bodies can only handle so much, and we have to take care of ourselves if we want to get through all the work we have to do.
In my first year of college, I pulled at least one all-nighter every week. I thought I had to push myself as hard as I could to finish what I needed to get done. I didn’t sleep nearly as much as I should have, and it got to the point that my own personal philosophy was that I must be forgetting something if I was in bed before midnight. Looking back, I’m not quite sure how I even had the energy to get up in the mornings.
Now, I’ve come to realize that, if I want to be happy, then sometimes I have to take a step back from the work I have to do. I have to realize that it will indeed be there tomorrow, and, if my body is telling me that I should go to bed, then odds are, I probably should go to bed. It’s crazy that it took me twenty-two years of living to realize that our bodies are not working against us when they start signaling that we need some rest.
Sometimes, we need to slow down and realize that we have to take care of ourselves too. Go out with your friends, have a fun night in, pull the occasional all-nighter, if you really have to, but don’t tear yourself down by believing you have to do everything, all the time. Taking care of ourselves is important. If we’re well-rested, we’ll probably get more done than we would if we stayed up all night and completely drained ourselves of energy.
There is so much to gain in life, and I’m so excited to live it to the fullest, while taking care of myself along the way, of course.