In A Blink Of An Eye, We’re Half-way Through

It’s been an incredibly tiring week like no other, zapping the every ounce of energy I had. But in a blink of an eye, it’s already sem-break — one semester over, one semester to go. The sem-break couldn’t have been timelier.

The 2nd quarter just like the 1st quarter of my Senior Year has been simply amazing. At first, I thought that my first quarter couldn’t be matched. With my trips to Singapore and Thailand and numerous other conferences and tournaments and memorable experiences, I was resigned to the fact that my 2nd quarter wouldn’t be as surreal as my first quarter. But to my surprise, my 2nd quarter was just as magical and in some aspects even more so.

When you have your grad-picture taking, you know graduation is coming soon….

From studying and taking the SAT subject tests (particularly my US history experience :)), participating in the SM Immersion, going through the Fully Alive Retreat, generating a lot of discussion and attention with my Inquirer Article, the launch of Project Jeep by Green Team, and the countless of invaluable memories in between, the 2nd quarter has managed to to surprise me in almost every possible way. All these experiences of mine weren’t just fun and memorable, they were also full of numerous life lessons and realizations that will surely help me in the final two quarters of my Senior Year!

Flexibility and Focus – Accepting Life’s Unpredictability

This past week, in an attempt to try to make the most out of each day, I created a set schedule for each day, outlining what I was suppose to do every hour. However, as I tried to put this schedule into effect, I realized that it’s impossible to follow it to the dot and trying to do so more often than not, only led to me being stressed out and as a result, I became less efficient.

I was starting to get frustrated and it was hard to shift from activity to activity constantly so I knew I didn’t need to necessarily scrap this idea of creating a time table schedule but modify it to fit my personality. It was worth a try though for it taught me a few lessons that I can definitely put into good use in the near future.

1. Learn how to be flexible

You don’t necessarily have to be this flexible, but flexibility is definitely essential to living a happy and successful life.

Life isn’t perfect and things won’t always go our way. Sometimes things will just pop up and cause us to be sidetracked from our normal routine. Life is unpredictable and there will be times when we aren’t feeling well. There will be times when we get a sudden appointment and have to make room for it in our schedule. There will be times when things take longer than we expect it to be.

When things like that happen, one must not panic or stress out. Instead, keep calm and be flexible. I’ve learned that panicking will only make things worse. There are so many uncontrollable factors, so instead of fighting them, we must learn how to accept them and be flexible. You can’t do anything about it so might as well just move on and try your best to still accomplish everything you have to do.

Besides, sometimes, it’s best to break out of your routine and simply do things freely again. There are moments where you get so caught up in your routine that you start to burn out and both your productivity and creativity suffers. Breaking out of your routine can help reenergize you and might even help come up with ingenious ideas.

2. Learn how to focus at the task at hand

Because of all the constant changes, distractions and other uncontrollable factors, it becomes really hard to concentrate on what we’re doing. This is something that I realized I should really work on. As I experimented having a set schedule last week, I’d tend to think of how much minutes I had left for the task at hand and what I had to do next. This resulted in my being distracted and I was unable to completely focus at the task I was doing.

Learning how to focus more often than not helps you achieve your goals!

I guess it’s a matter of breaking bad habits and developing a stronger will power. Right now, I’m trying to learn how to focus at one task at a time and trying to avoid multi-tasking when it’s not needed. I’ve come to realize that multi-tasking can at times be detrimental since we don’t give our full attention to a certain thing. We might be able to accomplish more but more often than not, the quality suffers. In the long run, quality is still a very important thing.

-DOitChoco