You Live, You Learn

First off, let me just start by apologizing to the reader(s) of my blog. I posted back in November that I would try to make at least on post per week on various topics of interest to me. This hasn’t happened. That afternoon, I was extremely motivated to start a blog, and develop an identity for myself on the world wide web. However, I failed to acknowledge my biggest flaw, not just with making blogs, but generally in my life: I procrastinate. It doesn’t just happen every once in a while, but all the time, and like a virus, it manages to creep into every aspect of my life.

It sucks.

There is one ray of light, however. It makes for a fantastic segue into my post.

Almost five months ago, I began taking courses here at Sir Wilfred Grenfell College, with an open mind and bursting potential. Almost four months ago, it died. I have no idea what happened, my motivation just extinguished and was replaced my a yern to be lazy. What happened? College happened. I’d heard for years that you have to work harder in college than any level of schooling before it, but I underestimated the magnitude of the importance of this advice. To be completely honest, I didn’t break my back studying and working on academics in high school, and I didn’t need to. Going to class and taking the notes was enough. I did really well, so I didn’t think much of all the information that I was being bombarded with in either of my five courses. This really started to catch up with me, however, when I started getting evaluations back in mid-October. Needless to say, they weren’t anything to get excited about. It really just went downhill from there. I was being buried alive, and the more I struggled to get out from under the massive mess of missed homework and assignments and looming midterm exams, the more seemed pile up on me.

That sucked, too.

At that point, I basically just gave up. In retrospect, not the best move, but it seemed to be the easiest. This is where the title of my post comes in. “You Live, You Learn”. It’s very true, and I speak from personal experience. Eleanor Roosevelt once said “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” I’ve referred to this quote several times in my life, and I think that it’s very good, but this was a mistake that I had to make, in my opinion, because otherwise, I would still be under the false delusion that effort isn’t required.

I was reluctant to tell my parents about my teetering grades, as it cost them an arm and a leg to put me into school, but I learned my lesson. This term, I started off with a fresh perspective and a motivation to not waste another for months. So far, I’ve kept up with my resolution, which keeps me motivated through these long, cold, wintery days.