School/Life Balance

One thing going into high school that I didn’t know was how important time management was. Yeah, teachers always talk about it, but you don’t truly realize how difficult it is to manage your time until you are swamped with work. At the beginning of high school, I was trying to live the high school dream life. Attending football games, hanging out with your friends, trying new clubs, homecoming, and all the other fun activities. I hadn’t realized till the second quarter that I wasn’t staying on top of my grades and was having too much fun.

When winter hit, I had gone into a studying coma and would refuse to go out and would only study. I had never been more burnt out and unhappy in my life. It had truly been my lowest point in life and the only thing I would care about would be my grades. I would even sacrifice my health for my grades and would skip multiple meals without realizing. Despite always prioritizing schoolwork, I would still be bombarded with loads of work from all classes. I would spend hours non-stop studying from when I came home from school till when I slept.

Not until the fourth and final quarter did I realize that I couldn’t live like that. I hadn’t been spending time with my friends or even texting them. It was extremely unhealthy, and I needed to find a balance in how much work and socializing I do. I began hanging out with my friends around every other weekend. I was still able to manage my grades and a healthy social life as well.

I still have a lot to learn from and it took me my whole school year to finally find a manageable balance, but as high school goes on, the workload only increases. And it’s not only just school and socializing there's also extracurriculars and other factors that play major roles in your life. It’s important to never prioritize one over the other because both are equally important. Sure, you may not realize that socializing is important, but once you go without it, you struggle greatly.

You should still live that high school experience, because you only do get to experience it once. And personally, I wish I realized early on how important it was to maintain a balance. If I had done that before, I would’ve been able to live my school year to its full potential while maintaining stable grades.