Confession of a Slacker

Hey guys,

I don’t really know what happened between the start of the semester and now but I am worn out.  I don’t think it is because I have been doing a lot, it might just be because of the stress.  I don’t deal with stress too well.  Either I use it as motivation to push through something, especially when I have procrastinated.  Or I completely ignore it and do something that will ease my nerves.  I often choose the latter which can be good or bad in certain situations.  One thing that I cannot stand is Pressure.

I guess you can put pressure and stress in the same category but Pressure is a little different for me.  It is one thing for me to be stressed out by some daunting task but it is worse for me to be pressured by a deadline that’s coming up, teachers, and peers who complete assignments with ease but seem to want to know your progress on them.

Some people call it friendly competition, or that little push to get the job done, I call it pressure and more times than not, I don’t deal too kindly with it.  I don’t know maybe it is just something about the college life.  Everybody feels the need to measure up, and everybody wants to know how they’re doing compared to somebody else.

The class seems like a silent war zone.  In every class there is an overachiever, a hard worker, a genius, a slacker, and a sleeper.   

 

The overachiever usually does everything for credit from the teacher.  They want their efforts to be acknowledged.  They sit front and center and have their hands raised for every question asked. They stay after class to talk to the teacher and offer to carry their books or erase the board.  They probably gave the teacher that apple that is on their desk.  When the pressure is on, the overachiever can usually coast on the credit they built up with class participation, and usually doesn’t crack.

The hard worker is the student that really doesn’t say much in class but has zero missing assignments.  They will speak up when called upon.  They won’t necessarily have a full grasp on everything being taught but they will make sure to go back and read up on it.  They have discipline and superb study habits. When the pressure is on the hard worker puts in the time. You probably won’t catch them on the yard during midterms or finals.

Now in my opinion the genius and the slacker are similar characters, because they both have unique thought processes.  There are students that know so much about the topic that they will either be completely engaged in the class or completely checked out.  They are also students that can get by with little to no effort and still come out okay in the end.  The genius can quickly become bored and focus his attentions elsewhere making him a slacker in the class.  The slacker can be called the lazy student because she likes to learn and can grasp the information quickly but usually doesn’t feel like doing the work.

The genius usually can do the work without paying attention and get by.  The slacker can get by paying attention and not doing the work.  The genius has good habits and a swift mind.  The slacker usually has bad habits and a swift mind.  Both may see the class as overrated and are easily bored. When the pressure is on the genius has no problems but the slacker usually does one of two things.  The slacker will either rise to the occasion and do what she has to do or will completely crack and get nothing done as a result of bad preparation.

Lastly, there is the sleeper.  Now the sleeper struggles to grasp the information due to different barriers so they check out.  Not necessarily by sleeping but they may be texting, clowning around, or just unengaged.  They are insecure in their abilities so they complain or find alternatives to coming to class.  Sometimes this is confused with the slacker but you can tell the difference because the slacker will understand but not perform well.  The sleeper will not understand or perform well, and eventually gives up. When the pressure is on for the sleeper the reaction is similar to the slacker’s.

In my opinion, each type of student is capable of succeeding in the class, but they all may have different means of doing so.  One determining factor of the students’ success is the teacher.  In grade school you can see this more clearly.  Some students require more attention (sleeper), some require a little motivation (slacker), and some need to be challenged (genius).  More times than not, a teacher will interact more with the overachiever, and the hard worker than the other three, leaving them to become disengaged or possible distractions.  Some teachers decide that they don’t want to put so much effort into it, and these are usually teachers that do not teach to see the success of their students, but have other personal motives.  Some teachers are so wrapped up in teaching alone that they become disengaged with their audience and are just consumed by their subject matter.  Other teachers choose the tough love route.  They make strict deadlines, they don’t take excuses, they give little to no help and assistance, and this usually comes off as an attitude of someone who does not care.

I’m sure you’re wondering where I am going with all of this…

 This is what I’m getting at.  I am a slacker and I know it.  Growing up I was considered gifted, and school came easy to me.  I was not a genius but it didn’t take much for me to grasp a concept and have it down.  So as I went through school I developed bad habits.  I could get A’s with little to no effort.  I wasn’t the teacher’s favorite, nor was I hard working.  Most teachers said “She’s no problem, and she’s so sweet.”  In class I was the quiet girl who sat in the back row. Teachers thought that I wasn’t paying attention but when I answered their questions correctly, it intrigued them.  When it came to concepts and understanding I was good.  Now work was another story.  Homework was not my friend.  Unless it was a project or an assignment that allowed me to use my creativity, I wasn’t interested.  Things that intrigued me, I spent hours on end doing but things that I found boring or unnecessary,  I would push aside.  I never faced the consequences of doing this until I reached college.  And as a college student, these became the things that I struggle with.

I can’t get myself to do an assignment unless I understand the concepts behind it.  Things that I don’t really care about I don’t do, and the things that I do care about take me so long to do that I miss deadlines.  I can never do things the same way twice.  I cannot follow a schedule, my time management in a constant struggle and I have no discipline whatsoever in studying.  I am constantly battling the system.  I enjoy learning but I am that slacker, faced with the tough love of my professors, who feel as if I don’t care.  I am trapped.  I’m trying to fight my way out of the slacker lifestyle.

The slacker is always fighting against herself and against her bad habits knowing that she is more than capable of succeeding. She just doesn’t know how to get out of her own way.

This is me.

 

Presh

Stardust, Dreamdust: Change Your Thoughts!

So I’ve been back at school for about a week now, and there has been a lot taking place.  Catching up with friends, buying books, classes, readjusting to the campus, and so on, and I promised myself that this year I would do things a little differently.   So I hit the ground running.  If there were chapters to be read, I read them all.  If there were assignments, community service opportunities, people to talk to, errands to run, and so on, I planned and set time aside to do things quickly and efficiently before their deadlines.  Why? Because Procrastination is my opponent and we’ve been fighting each other since I set foot in this place.  I would be so slack, for no reason at all.  It wasn’t that I couldn’t get things done, it was just that I didn’t feel like doing it.  I would keep putting it off and keep pushing it back.  I knew that if I did not try extremely hard to break habits in the beginning, I would be doomed to fall back into my old way of doing things and be back at it with procrastination once again.   In the past seven days, and already in these first 18 days of the New Year, I have tried to view my world differently.  I want to open my mind to different opportunities, and try to understand things that I used to avoid (cautiously, of course).  Things that I’ve perceived to be one way based off of my own experiences were far from truth.  Life is not always just black and white but it is dominated by the grays. That’s why I want to use the quote by Norman Vincent Peale as the main focus of this post.

“Change your thoughts and you change your world”

I’ve had this quote in my email signatures for a few years now and for some reason it is just now smacking me in the face lol.  I mean duh, why did it take me so long to put this into action?  All the while I have been defeated by things even before I tried them just because I went in with the mindset that it “couldn’t be done”, or “I couldn’t (can’t) do it”.  Or in some situations I went in thinking, “that’s not for me” or “I don’t have time”, or even “Nah I’m good”.  How do I even know if I’ve never tried it?

This quote can be applied to so many different life situations: personal, professional, religious, leisure, etc.  There are even situations where people did some of the most unheard of, miraculous, and phenomenal things just because they had a belief deep down that it could be done, or it had to be done.

So my friends, we have to change our mindsets. THINK BIG, THINK POSITIVE, THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!  Our thoughts influence our beliefs, our beliefs influence our goals, and our goals influence our everyday actions.  They can open doors but they can also close them.   They can touch lives, or ruin them.  The mind is powerful, and what you choose to do with yours will affect your life.  God gave you that brain of yours.  He gave you wisdom and intellect, and strength in your bones to do the impossible.  But without Faith, Trust, Hope, Belief, all mental entities, what can be done??

Think about it…

Love,

Presh

Stardust, Dreamdust: Finding Your Purpose

Have you ever wondered what your life purpose was?

Personally I used to always wonder about it too, but when I found out what it was my life has never looked the same.  I have hope and know that life is full of possibilities.  No more will I be subject to the expectations of others but I can now define my life according to my passions.

Before finding out my purpose I used to go crazy trying to figure it out.  I used to be dramatic about it too.  When I got a bad grade, or was not doing as so well as a biology major I would want to give up and the excuse was always “I’m not cut out for this”, “I don’t want to do this for the rest of my life”. I wanted to switch my major, and I honestly think I would have if my parents didn’t tell me not to do it. I was like this all the way up until my Senior year in College.  Going into senior year, my mindset was completely different.  Even though I hadn’t figured out my purpose, something told me to give it all that I could, and push myself past my limits.  That’s a lesson in and of itself.

So when did I figure out my purpose?

Well, one day, while I was home for Thanksgiving break, I was laying on my bed… staring at the ceiling… thinking about life.  I know, a little cliché, but that’s not just it.  Something told me to pull out my bible and to read the book of Ecclesiastes.  I’d remembered the words of Solomon as he told of his experimentation with the ways one could live life, and his conclusions and findings of what he observed.  I read the whole book from the beginning of Chapter 1 to the last verse of Chapter 12, writing down scriptures that stood out to me.  I came out with three main points.

1.  Fear God and keep His commandments
2. Eat, Drink, and Enjoy the work of our hands, for it is the inheritance of God
3. Do what is the joy of our hearts

(Ecclesiastes 3:12-13; 5:18-20; 9: 10-11; 10: 5-6, 9-10)

I found these to be very mind stimulating points.  Our sole purpose as humans is to fear God, keep his commandments and enjoy life by doing what brought our hearts joy.  Pretty simple, right?… Not quite.

I wasn’t so sure of what it was that brought me joy,  I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but I wasn’t sure why I wanted to do it, and that brought into question the reasons behind my decision to even major in biology in the first place, but that will be discussed in the next post.

So I took out pen and paper and wrote down things that I enjoyed doing, writing down anything that came to mind.  After I couldn’t think of anything else, I went back to the top and evaluated each item on the list, one by one, asking myself these questions:

1. Can I do this for a lifetime and not grow tired of it?
2. If I never did this again, would my life be miserable?
3. Does this come easy for me?
4. Do people respect me when I do this?
5. Am I passionate about this?

There was only one item that answered all five questions.  And the way my heart warmed when meditating on this was evidence that it was the right one.  I thanked God for the revelation.

So, that is how I figured out my purpose, it wasn’t as hard as I thought, but it took a lot of being honest with myself and digging deep.    If this way doesn’t work for you there is a Tedx talk that I found to be helpful which also reassured my purpose once again for me.  Check it out, and I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

 

 

Live life on Purpose, don’t allow people, or society to tell you what to do with your life.  A life spent chasing money and fame, without passion will always be a life lacking true happiness.  God has given each of us a specific purpose that was designed uniquely for us.  They are found in our gifts and talents. Don’t sit on them.  It is written in Proverbs 18, verse 16 “A man’s gift makes room for him, And brings him before great men.”  Find your true life purpose, chase it, use it to bring God glory, and I guarantee your life will be great.

I pray God reveals it to you, just as he did for me, may God bless You!

Love Presh