“You’ll miss it when it’s over” The most annoying six words said to you when you’re in school. I remember hearing it so much in grade 11 and 12, and I never once believed it, I was just ready for real life to begin – to explore, to work, to make choices. Of course I was wrong, and I miss school at least once a week, but that’s so beside the point because even if I had of realised I’d miss it what could I do? Five years is all you get, it’s got it’s a guaranteed end.
In the last week though, I’ve realised the advice I wish I understood in high school…
“Don’t spend so much time planning for the future that you miss the amazing now”
High school sucks. It just happens in the wrong stage of life, you’re insecure, you struggle to pay attention, and all your interests are just waking up.
But, the opportunities and experiences you get in high school will mostly never appear again in life. I spent so much time in year 11 and 12 thinking that all the cool things I was involved in were just like dress rehearsals for the “real version” once I graduated, but that’s just not true, high school is like a buffet of experiences where you have the chance to experience a lot of things, and then choose the best few to continue with for the rest of your life.
I spent so much of high school time anxious about things that I was convinced were so important, that basically have meant nothing to me since I was 18. I wasted so many opportunities by…
Being lazy – I seriously spent so much time avoiding assignments, just cause I didn’t want to do them. I really regret missing the sense of satisfaction of putting a lot of work into something, and in high school I had no interest chasing that feeling, the late nights, the stress, the learning, the midnight snacks… I didn’t do any of it, and I wish I did experience that. I also didn’t want to do early mornings, or much staying back after school… gosh I lost a lot of opportunities cause of that. Believing my immediate social circumstances would have impact beyond this weekend – Friendships and social life is important in high school, I just spent so much time investing unnecessarily in friendships, waiting for them to come online, sending big long messages… procrastinating with them. None of these things increased the quality of my friendships, in fact most of it degraded the quality, hindsight has taught me that I would have grown so much more in my friendships if they were a reward for good study habits, as a pose to how I spent ALL of my time.
Fearing the unknown – I avoided SO many situations cause I was afraid of not fitting in or looking like a fool! I think this was especially bad for me, if someone I was afraid of being hurt by was at a party I just wouldn’t go. I can actually list off countless situations where I missed out on big fun, or meeting awesome new people just cause I was too afraid of going somewhere, or talking to someone.
Focusing on my life after school – I almost used this as a way to appear too cool to do many normal high school things, I had a career I was working towards and normal high school stuff was too boring or below me. So dumb, I get to live that career every day for ever, how about living being a high schooler for the few years I GOT TO BE ONE!
This all came into the blaring light for me last week when I was chatting to a friend of mine doing her senior years in boarding school, this was my greatest fear in high school… I just couldn’t imagine having to do that, ever, and couldn’t understand people who seemed to be okay with it. Gosh, imagine all the lost social opportunities, freedom, fun times, normalness…
Last week though I almost slapped myself in the face.
“I could have done that” I thought “Easily.”
It would have just been two years, and those two years would of been the coolest experience that I’d never, ever get another chance of experiencing, and even if it sucked, it would have been over… in just two short years. I know two years is huge in high school world, but in the scheme of things, it comes and goes so fast, by age 20 it would have been three years ago.
OKAY, LET ME FINISH THIS
In the first term of year 12 I scored a minor role in our musical that we did with the neighbouring girls school, the term we worked on and then performed that musical made up the best memories of my entire school life. At the time I also began doing work experience at my dream radio station, and was doing the incredibly hard task of starting year 12. This term also had one other really significant point of interest – it was the highest marks I got across the board for all of high school. All in that one term.
I tell people my marks dropped for the rest of year 12 because I was distracted by radio, but deep down I know that’s not true.
Term 1, Year 12, I was giving my everything to the moment, and every part of my life flourished.
Over the next three terms I lost so much motivation to study, spent so much time messaging online, or hanging around the radio station, that when we finally graduated everyone was so mental and celebrating and I kinda felt a bit… empty, like no big celebration was needed. Unlike everyone else I hadn’t slogged my guts out and given it my all, I didn’t need (or deserve) time to kick back and celebrate what I’d done, looking back on that now I realise how much it sucks.
My job now is to not look back on how badly I wasted high school, it’s to look at my life right now and find where I’m still making those mistakes at age 25, and hope I’m not reflecting on the time in a decade in the same way.
So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.