It's already June, and most if not all of you are finishing school, unpacking, avoiding packing or are already in the flow of old habits that are seemingly so new again. There's happiness in seeing old friends that now seem like strangers, and visiting your favorite pizza place where everything tastes like home again. There’s also the bittersweet desire to go back to school, where every weekend is booked, there's always something to do and your new friends are mere footsteps away from your bedroom door. This is summer.
Most people look at summer as a time to get everything done in a few short months. Loading on extra summer classes just so you can take that elective you want in the fall. Piling on job after job, because the phrase “broke college student” was not made to scare you, but to warn you of reality. Lastly, visiting literally every single one of the places you have not seen in months in a week time span because you’re so worried about missing out on one tiny thing before you resume, what you like to call, your new “better” life at school. However, every college student that is doing this, is doing summer wrong, including myself.
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I have piled on three jobs this summer which require my direct attention every day of the week ranging my work hours from 7:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. I was even planning on piling on three classes this summer, but from business inquiries and other extracurricular offers, it did not work out in my favor. Of course, I make as much time as I can to see my friends that I had missed oh so dearly.
Just the other day, I realized that I was doing summer wrong. I was not giving myself the summer I needed, and I realized I was even more stressed than I was in school. All of this occurred to me when I sat down and realized I still had no money. My mom asked me how I had been because she had not seen me in my house for three days. Three days! That was when I knew my summer was off.
Every semester about a week before finals, you will hear every single student on campus say they are tired and cannot wait to go home. They have been up since 4 a.m. studying, and they are so psychologically exhausted they can’t even think straight. Every college student has had this conversation. But why is it that when we go home, and dream of being in total serenity, free from this pain of hard work, we find ourselves working harder? In the blink of an eye, we are back in another lecture hall wondering where the summer went and why we can’t go back and relive it.
We need to slow down. Our minds, especially as the freshman who went into college blind not knowing what to expect, are exhausted. We have spent more than 30-hours-a-week in the library writing 10-page research papers and memorizing that last paragraph in our textbooks. We have been trying to balance work with play, and surviving in our dorms alone. Our summer is a time to take a step back from all of that and sit down. We need to sit down.
There needs to be a point where we can all relax for just a day or two with absolutely nothing on our agenda. A day once a week where we can sit there and let our minds go blank relaxing by a pool, or taking a nap or curled up watching TV. I understand we all need money, and I’m not saying to not pursue a job or extra classes, but do not work yourself as hard as you did in school. You will ultimately lead yourself to exhaustion, stress, anxiety and the inability to keep going. No one can do it all. So don’t try to tell yourself that you are the person that can. You are young and you are human. Take a break. Let this summer be one where you feel brand new. And take at least an hour out of each day to do absolutely nothing. Because nothing is sometimes the best something.
