Life is like doing yoga: if you're not stretched good, you're not getting your money's worth. But the catch to this seemingly infinite work-out is that, the more you're tossled and folded and twisted and bent in the most excrutiatingly unthinable ways, the more likely you are to be tempted to throw in the towel early. Most people, in fact, do. But the real problem here, isn't that you don't have what it takes to be pushed to the extreme, it's really just that you'd much rather save yourself from the pain and effort. Because it's easier to say you can't than it is to say you can, but you just need to try harder.
We had our very first SPSS computer assignment last week. Most people were smart enough to have gotten it done and over with over the weekend. Strangely enough, my weekend swooshed by in what seemed to be like a blur of a 30 minute long gibberish of an interview, a minor shopping spree and nod-offs at church, somehow my first major stats assignment never made it on that packed-down agenda. Hmm. Come Sunday night, I found myself alone in my room, experiencing what seemed to be my very first nervous breakdown on American soil, or as close to one as I'll ever allow myself, as I painfully attempted to plough through the assignment.
I've always considered myself pretty savvy when it comes to school, as nerdy as that may sound. But if there's one thing that I know I can really knock it out the park, it's being an A-student. I get school, I get teachers, and exams and what the system's all about. I just do. Pathetically enough, I consider that to be my core competence. Ha. And that's not even a joke. For my sake, hopefully that won't be the case for long.
But as I stared down my 3-page stats assignment that could very well have been written in Martian and wouldn't have made much of a difference, the only thing stopping me from melting into a sobbing puddle was the fact that I had a lack of an audience. See, there's really no point in having a melt-down if there's no one around to see it, and to come to the rescue and make you feel better. Oh don't get me wrong, I did everything in my power to locate an immediate audience, tried calling my mom like 3 times, to no avail. God must've agreed with my life-long policy, that of all the unproductive things you can possibly do in a crisis, crying trumps all.
As panic-stricken and lost as I was, nothing can possibly be catastrophic enough to deprive me of my sleep. I have found that a good night's sleep has always worked miracles for me, that is of course not encouraging you slackers to expect your procrastinated papers to somehow self-materialize overnight. But half way through Monday, I have located 3 comrades and we immediately began to divide and conquer.
It's amazing how different one can feel in a time span of less than 24 hours. But as I walked home that day, bathing in what could very well be Chicago's last few rays of autumn sun, it struck me that nothing truly is catastrophic enough to demolish you, even the seemingly herculean challenges that tower over you and threaten to devour you are unlikely to deliver what they are trying to intimidate you into believing. Because the moral of the story is, you don't give yourself enough credit for just how tenacious you really are.
Tuesday afternoon, we were finally able to part farewell with our headache-inducing schoolwork. I'll say this now, but will not admit to it hereinafter, that to my utmost surprise, I had truly enjoyed it, and as it turned out, it was hardly a task that was deserving of my first American breakdown. But that's just the thing isn't it, if I had only given myself the benefit of the doubt, if I had only took leaps of faith and believed that I can and will, instead of stumbling down to erroneous conclusions, if I had only done so, I could've probably saved myself a couple billion brain cells that were vanquished in total vain by the hallucinated and unwarranted fear that I was a retarded accident that fluked her way into Northwestern. If only.
If you're going to jump, if you're taking into account all the potential risks of a bad landing, of sprained ankles, of cramps in legs, of chipped teeth, of bruises and scratches, if you're going to jump anyways, best make sure that your destination is going to be worth all the hassle. And you best stretch a bit before you take that leap. Because jumps that you can make in your sleep is hardly worth your attention or time. Because you know deep down that even if you leaped and fell on your face, it would've been a greater experience than if you had chosen to stay rooted on the same spot. And most importantly, it would've been more fun!!
And at the end of the day, that really is what life, and well, doing yoga, is all about.
留言列表
