As a kid, I often dreamed of living on my own and being old enough to make my own decisions. This, to me, was the dream, and I couldn’t wait for the day it came. Finally, I’d be able to do what I want, when I want and how I want to do it; there was nothing that sounded better. But about three weeks ago when I moved to my dorm and was finally on my own, I immediately missed being a kid.
It was scary; I had no one to immediately lean on now, no parents to go downstairs and ask questions and no one to hold me up if I fell. I was alone. While it was stressful, I knew I had no choice but to get my life in order. I knew I was going to have to schedule my time in order to use it most efficiently, while also enjoying college as much as I can.
Back in high school, I always liked the idea of creating a schedule for myself, but found acting on it more difficult than expected. The problems wouldn’t lie in the planning and staging — only in the execution.
My senior year, I would try to wake up at 6:00 a.m. so that I could get up, have a few minutes on my phone, shower, eat breakfast, then drive to school and arrive at 7:05 a.m. In my head, this seemed like a simple plan, but in reality, this plan was only actually done probably once or twice.
How it normally went down was that I’d wake up at 6:30 a.m., realize I was late, take the quickest shower I could, then immediately drive to school and arrive at 7:15 a.m. Every morning felt like a race, and I’d end up relying on my mother to wake me up. It was not only embarrassing, but something I knew I couldn’t rely on forever.
Then the first week of college classes came, and I knew for certain I couldn’t rely on anything but myself. That first week taught me a lot about how much time I wasted without even thinking and how much scheduling your time can improve your life.
From the moment I woke up till dinnertime, my life was scheduled, and then night would be time for anything I wanted. It was everything I wanted my life to look like in high school, but I started to realize the problem with a scheduled life.
While on one hand I loved how much the schedule was helping me use my time most effectively, I felt like my life was becoming monotonous. Every day I followed the same schedule of waking up, going to the gym and going to my classes. My life got boring, which was the exact opposite problem I had in high school, when my life was too erratic. No matter what I did, I wasn’t happy, and I felt like scrapping the whole schedule idea — which is exactly what I did.
I was about halfway through the day and fed up with living like a robot, so instead of doing the homework I had scheduled, I went on my phone and just relaxed. It felt great finally doing what I wanted when I wanted to do it, like everything I dreamed of when I was a kid. But after a while of just sitting there, I realized this wasn’t the life I wanted to live.
No matter how much it looked like paradise as a kid, it was empty and had no substance to it. If everyone did what they wanted when they wanted, I don’t think anything would really get done — especially with how often people tend to procrastinate if there’s no due date.
Instead of scrapping the schedule, I scheduled periods of time throughout the day to just relax. While you should definitely schedule the important things in your life, it’s just as important to schedule free time. Otherwise, you’ll run into the same problems I did and begin living the same day over and over again.
There’s a balance to it, as there is with most things. Everyone’s balance is different, so finding what works best for you is essential to living each day as productively you can while still leaving time for yourself. It’s easy to dream of a life where every decision is made for you, like when you were a kid. But you’d be missing out on so much of what life has to offer, so appreciate the freedom you have now, because it’s one of the most valuable things you have.
Samuel J. Beadle is a first-year English major. SB1033446@wcupa.edu