Walking My Own Path

     Haha, cheesy title, eh? But bear with me for a while. 

     There are about 3 weeks left until the end of the school term. Only 3 weeks to do everything I need to do. It seems like plenty, but for me, the big assignments are due much sooner than that, so it’s really less time that I have.

     In one sense, I feel it would be fun to apply myself every minute of the day to homework. It would make a good story. I could pretend (yes, there’s nothing wrong with pretending, even when you are an “adult” J) that I’m away at boarding school and have to study. But when you’re only pretending, you don’t have to face the consequences of that story, or the same challenges. When you hit those same challenges for real, that’s when you realize how difficult they are.

     It’s not as if these assignments are that difficult – it’s mostly my attitude. Somewhere along the line, I picked up the idea that it’s ok, normal, or even beneficial to be whiny and evasive of my homework. It’s kind of what you do in high school… Except it usually means you don’t do as well. How is that helpful to me, other than causing more stress in the end? When did success and diligence become uncool? I have to forget what everyone else says (ie. that homework is uncool, and that what other people see as cool actually matters) – how they feel the pull to procrastinate, like I do, and are seemingly okay with it. Maybe it’s me; that when they share how difficult it is to stop being distracted and focus, I say something like “it’s okay, me too” and never really think about how to change. It’s not really their fault, but somehow my procrastination has been enabled by the general attitudes of the students around me for years. Or at least I let it.

     So it’s hard, but appealing to not to think about this enabling, and instead to live inside my own story, or at least the way I think things ought to be (and therefore also the way I want them to be). In my own story, I know it’s good to study, and I have a goal, so therefore I will make myself study. It’s difficult but appealing to walk my own path; to know that there are easier options than studying, but that they ultimately have worse off results. I want to stop listening to the voice that says it’s okay to procrastinate, because that never gets me anywhere worth being. God has generally always dug me out of the holes I have fallen into that I make for myself via procrastination. That is awesome that He has kept me surviving, but I don’t want to continue to live in mediocrity. If I could enable discipline, I wouldn’t dig holes for myself in the first place. And avoiding the awful pit of procrastination would be lovely. J

     In everything I am trying to do the help myself to do my homework (ie. try to soften the blow by making tea, or putting on music), I realize that inside I am really trying to make the act of studying easier for myself. Some things, however, will never be easy, and sometimes I have to rise to the level of the challenge instead of making it come down to where I am.

     There are a few things I can do to make things more manageable and motivate myself, but if my primary mindset is that the task has to be made easy enough for me to accomplish it, I probably never will.

It’s also true that the other extreme is not helpful, either – beating myself down and making myself feel bad about failure will not motivate me to do any better. I have lived in both ditches, and I must both love and discipline myself to continue down the road. But it’s a road that goes to a good place, and I know God is helping me walk there.

     For once, I want to be a person who has a grip on things – who moves with purpose, integrity, and intention rather than letting life overtake me.

     Discipline is like a ladder that I can climb up to face my challenges.

     It’s an empowering thought that for once, I could live my own story and walk my own path without doing what everyone else seems to be doing. That’s really the carrot at the end of the stick – to become a little more independent by saying no to procrastination. Life can be rough when we’re kids and teenagers because we never quite feel free. When we are adults we have the wonderful gift of independence. This also naturally comes with its stresses, as well as pitfalls we can fall into if we don’t handle the gift correctly. But there’s the good side, too. If we do use it correctly so as to help us become all that we can become, then we really can live our own story; be heroes and heroines and face down our challenges; conquer the mountains we face instead of just looking at how big they are. That’s a good place to be.