Erratic Thought #8

It’s monday. Eight o’ clock. Your homework is due tomorrow morning. Let’s see, how much is left? You have half a math lesson, math corrections, vocabulary for Government, and oh yeah! You still have to finish those literature questions and there are a lot of them. Should you go to sleep soon or stay up late doing all this boring stuff? It is really important to get a good night’s sleep. I mean, there are two study halls at the beginning of the day. You can get some stuff done then, right? 

You have some good excuses, too. Come on! It was a super busy week. With going to the orthodontist, guitar lesson, cross country, doing tons of chores, helping mom, and having just a little free time for yourself, the week seemed to go by so fast.

Bottom line: There is a lot of stuff to do and hardly any time to do it. You want more than anything to just push it away and hope that it will come back tomorrow all finished. What do you do? Well, the appropriate thing to do would be to to bite the bullet (that is one of my favorite phrases) and get it done. I guess my question really is: in what way do you do it?

I have talked to a lot of my friends, when they have found themselves in this situation (OK, not quite that bad). I almost always hear, “Ah! I am just so stressed about all this work,” or “I am just really stressing out about all this vocabulary.” I, personally, hate stressing. I hate it with all my soul. If I know we are going to be late to somewhere I really want to be on time, I intentionally try not to look at the clock. If I have a lot of homework to do, I turn up some loud music, so my mind isn’t thinking about the classes I have the next day. If I know something bad is going to happen, or I am just nervous about something, I just think about all of the blessings in my life. Stressing makes me uncomfortable, it makes me tense, and I have found that the more you try not to think about something, the more you actually do think about it. Now, I acknowledge that at times, stressing can be appropriate, but I overall like to enjoy my life. A stressful life is one of the worst lives I can imagine. I like making the best of every situation, even boring, obnoxious homework.

Maybe, it can sometimes be genuinely helpful to freak out about stuff. But I prefer keeping things simple, light, and fun, if possible. I certainly do not think stressing is good, but I also don’t think it is always bad, either.

Matthew 6:34                                                                                                                                        “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”