Waiting for the Lull

“These next couple weeks are going to be crazy.”

I swear I’ve heard some iteration of that all over campus. There is seemingly no end and no beginning to midterms — so let’s face the facts. There is no end or beginning. A student’s work, learning, is generally round-the-clock. Science says it works best that way, so why do we feel the need to “prep” for an intense period of time, only to wait for a “low week” or weekend or break? 

Especially when that lull never comes, that weekend was actually a wash because you ended up finishing that paper due Friday at midnight followed by a mad scramble on Sunday to study and finish a project, and that break was all too short to simultaneously reconnect with loved ones, run necessary errands, and still keep learning. We need to change our approach to stop feeling resentful and unfulfilled.

As students, we live where we work and work where we play. Separating our life from our responsibilities to recharge is an ordeal that takes intentional observation, evaluation, and reconfiguration. 

Something I have found helps me separate work from play — and helps me rest daily — is simply not having my phone with me in bed. Because my job as an Ambassador is to connect with other people (how is that even a job?!), it can be easy to scroll through Instagram or Facebook to chat with people to get to know them on a personal level. Though this might not seem like the getaway you look for when midterms loom around every corner, it helps me control my thoughts, and center them on something I can touch, taste, hear, smell or see or something to be grateful for early in the morning (I have my Five Minute Journal on hand for that tech-free time). I feel closer to my genuine thoughts that are not pulled by external responsibilities or expectations; instead, I can find my center and my own energy by taking those precious minutes at morning and at night to find that I have exactly what I need to do enough that day.  I can, in fact, have enough sleep or enough time or enough skill or enough willpower to last me through the next beautiful day that has been granted to me. 

As Brene Brown says, 

“We wake up in the morning and we say, ‘I didn’t get enough sleep.’ And we hit the pillow saying, ‘I didn’t get enough done.'”   We’re never thin enough, extraordinary enough or good enough – until we decide that we are. 

Decide tonight that what you have done is enough. Tomorrow, you will do enough. You know what needs to be done. You have everything you need to do it. You are enough.

• CHAARG
• mental health
• stress
• time management
• vanderbilt