Katie,
I know how stressed you’ve been over the past few weeks. With three exams, multiple quizzes, papers due for different classes, approaching deadlines for semester-long projects, and taking eleven hours of dance practices per week, you’ve been stretched pretty thin lately. That’s completely understandable. However, these past few stress-fueled weeks brought out some ugly sides of you, so there are some things I want you to keep in mind for the next time life gets a little hectic.
It’s okay to be stressed; stress is natural. What’s not okay is how much you allow your stress to affect you. What’s not okay is force-feeding yourself copious amounts of information at one sitting. What’s not okay is staring at the same pages of notes for hours with no mental breaks. What’s not okay is getting so frustrated at yourself for not remembering one minor fact that it drives you to tears. What’s not okay is skipping meals because you’re “too busy” studying; your body is “too busy” trying to nourish itself to keep you moving forward since you refuse to replenish it with food.
It’s okay to get frustrated. However, it’s not okay to lash out at people due to your pent-up frustrations; that’s not fair to them. On the opposite end of that, it’s also not okay to hide yourself away in your room and avoiding social interactions because of your stress. It’s okay to talk to your friends about what’s making you stressed. Don’t push them away. They want to help. Discussing what’s on your mind does not make you a burden.
It is not okay to view dance—the thing you love most in life—as a burden; as something that is merely taking away time that you could be studying. You cannot allow yourself to lose sight of the things you care about most in life.
I want you to know that it’s okay to take breaks, to get distracted, to take a moment to yourself and breathe. It’s okay that you got a B on that one exam; that does not belittle your intelligence. It’s okay that you didn’t study as much as you would’ve liked for those three quizzes; you had two papers to write instead.
I know you want to maintain your 4.0, but your mental health and overall wellbeing are much more important than a number you think constitutes your worth in knowledge. Your value is measured by so much more than a grade point average.
Your value is measured by how good of a person you are, something a GPA could never measure up to.