Challenge 11: Management

6. If you were to look back on your high school years, what advice would you give to someone beginning their high school career? (Simmons)

The only thing I wish to say about high school is that one should only do things he or she will not regret later. There is nothing I regret or wish to change if I went back in time to my freshmen year; but there is something that makes me feel bitter when I think of my high school life: management.

Now I think about my school days, I was very greedy. I still do not know if that was good or bad that I wanted to do everything – music, studies, leadership positions, community work, and so on. I had signed up for so many things that I didn’t have time to talk to friends, sleep, or eat proper meals. It later happened that my schedule for different activities overlapped and I had to give up on some activity or the other, favoring some over the other. Since the activities are held in school, I did disrupt other people’s important schedule by not being completely committed to all my activities. People told me that doing lots of activities in high school is a good thing. But now I wonder if signing up for lots of activities was really the best thing to provide the best condition to join a college or for me. Sometimes I imagine myself having no meetings or activities, thus being free to make more friends, spend more time for religious life, or study more about the world and life.

As mentioned before, certainly, I do not regret signing up for so many activities because I believe that that’s how I spent my school days the fullest. Nevertheless, I do feel that I could have been more balanced out in different things – activities or socializing – and I could have managed my time more wisely. My only advice is this: make sure your fullest is truly fullest considering the time and things you like to do, and do not forget to enjoy all this.