The Here and Now

I took the ACT last Saturday. It was awful.

Who knew four and a half hours of testing would just completely eat away at one’s ability to do anything else for the rest of the day? Immediately after the test I went home, ate some waffles, and promptly passed out for about four hours.

The point of this column, however, is not to talk about how not-fun the ACT was, rather than to talk about why I and so many of you – my fellow peers – took/will take the ACT: our future.

This “grass is greener on the other side” concept has been regularly drilled into our brains from the time we entered school. In Kindergarten it was Elementary, Elementary to Middle, and Middle to High School. Upon entering High School everything became this frantic race to get to whatever was beyond graduation for each of us, with extremely heavy emphasis on secondary education being that “beyond:” college, university, technical school, etcetra.

I have been to my fair share of LINKS meetings when I was a freshman, telling me that “success starts now” and “you control your destiny” and generally positive stuff like that. I have sat in the library with counselors as they try to map my future into an atlas of sorts, through personality tests, occupation profilers, and school sorting lists. The school actually covered the walls in college paraphernalia. I have said, “Oh, this will look good on college applications and resumes” enough times to make me sick.

Everything I have been doing in terms of my educational career thus far has been with one fairly single minded goal of attending a university. The ACT was another step on the path to this goal.

Although a lot of this is necessary, unless of course you are planning not to finish high school, it has started to become a little strenuous. I currently take three AP courses, participate in band and all its extra activities, volunteer, write for this paper, and work part-time, all while trying to simultaneously make time for myself and things I like to do. And I’m not alone. I know many other kids with similarly busy lives, and my sympathy is with them, because if it’s anything like what I experience, it can be very stressful.

As a completely related side-note: it is the general consensus of most people everywhere that junior year is the hardest year of high school. All of our busy schedules, with the added expectation of suddenly getting ready for college, is just a little bit insane.

Sometimes all of this stress comes down in a really negative way. I am prone to anxiety attacks and have had more this year than both of my previous years of high school combined.

In the aftermath of one of my more recent attacks, I realized that I needed to slow down. I have been so caught up in my future that I haven’t had time to process the here-and-now. The idea of “today” is a gift that I had been regularly throwing away, opting to think of my future and everything in the long term. Long term goals are important, but sometimes we really need to take a step back.

I’m here to tell you to breathe. Relax. Do something for yourself every now and then. Learn to love the present. Learn to love yourself.

Go tell someone you love them. Ask someone you’ve had your eye on out on a date. Go buy some ice cream. Get up early and watch the sunrise. Or if morning isn’t your thing, get outside late and view the moon and the stars. End every relationship, romantic or not, that is toxic to you and your mental health.

Don’t forget all of your responsibilities and goals, because those are important, but make time to appreciate what’s going on today and your short term goals. Can barely make it through today? Then finish your homework and go to bed. Sometimes all it takes is the little stuff.

I am thoroughly convinced that anyone who can make it through high school today is a warrior. So if you’re stressing, take a moment to take care of yourself, and then get right back to work, you brave soul. Get out there and achieve.

After all, there is no time like the present.