How could we be lost when we were on the conveyor belt of life? We cruised in the fast lane heading towards high school graduation and accepted the sleep-deprived state of mind as our reality. There was a reason we couldn’t wake up. We were in a cloud of delirium. So focused on being perfect for college, we were not living for ourselves.
We were buried alive in Advanced Placement classes. There was a reason we couldn’t breathe. The crippling stress took over our bodies, resulting in greasy hair and sweaty palms. It was suffocating to think that taking a shower was the only sense of relaxation afforded to us as high school students. We spend hours upon hours deciphering the complicated problems of AP Calculus and AP Physics, praying for the validation of a perfect score.
High school consisted of worrying about every single grade. The fear that a ninety-nine in a sea of one hundred would wash away all our hard work by knocking down our grade point average by a fracture of a point too much. A time when learning felt urgent and required, but learning only really mattered if we performed well on exams.
Fortunately, we have found solace. College is a paradise in comparison. College demands large sums of money, but our tears paid for high school. College allows us to truly appreciate the beauty of learning. We’re not as worried about our grades, although we’re still striving for those As. In some ways, we should be more stressed out.
But there is a freedom found when we focus on the classes for our majors.
I have fallen in love. My journalism classes are exhilarating. It’s a beautiful combination of my first love—writing—with my other interests—photography and video editing. My professor preached the importance of monetizing our hobbies, and my decision to pursue journalism is starting to seem possible.