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Eli
Eli

Posted on

Wake up

Today, I got a low grade on a chem lab quiz and I'm quite sure I didn't do well on the chem midterm too. The lessons felt pretty easy honestly which made it even feel worse when I struggled in the exam.

It's a pretty rough start considering my first few weeks back in college (after 1 gap year) was a lot of unpacking and moving a lot of stuff to a whole new place far away from my home in the other side of the world.

Right now I think I'm probably wasting valuable time by writing these things down. I'm not sure if its out of impulse or motivation. All I know is that I need to take a step back, breathe, and write.

The timer went to zero and it hit me. What am I doing? This chem exam was supposed to be easy for me. It was not. I was freezing up, getting nervous and anxious about the future.
"I still need to write my essay for my university applications (currently in community college). I need to relearn my calculus hard since prof is making it so difficult. I need to get good grades for university and I'm already having this BAD START. But GRAHH, I'm always on my phone, wasting time in that world. Moreover, I want to get back on my coding. I don't want to lose that skill. How can I manage school and coding? I want to learn this and that algorithm. I want to try developing on the blockchain. What about my physical health? I need to do something about that too. I need to make SOMETHING happen." These thoughts come up and it gets heavy. I feel paralyzed.

What should I do? I ask myself. WHAT SHOULD I DO?! Now importunately asking myself while screaming on my bed covers.

Shut up.

Breathe.

Accept.

Understand.

Act.

Sorry about that chaos, I just needed to make some space in my head. Genuinely, I want to grow. I want to commit. I wrote this somewhat informal blog or "scream" because I wanted to let things out. In other words, I wanted to be able to accept that part of me so I placed it into words and looked at it for a while. It was frustrating to look at and then it actually got kind of funny. I could've done better.

"Could've done better."

So why didn't I do better? Well, here's the list:

  • 4hrs to 5hrs average screen time on phone
  • sleep super late
  • wake up super late
  • easily distracted while studying
  • worrying a lot about other things instead of the task at hand already
  • not exercising
  • video games (but mehn i just got spiderman on steam)
  • doing hw last minute

There you have it. The overstimulation villains. Let's also call them the zero attention span squad. But yep, it really took a lot of me.

Now, as cheesy as it may sound, I will fight back. I want to become a better person. I want to learn because I want to learn, so I'm telling myself now to stop fixating on the grade and shift the focus on what actually needs to be grasped.

I will work hard on instilling a growth mindset for myself. I promise after publishing this post, I will throw my stupid ego out the window and drive myself to work hard and learn instead of just doing it out of motivation.

In the future, I just want to help other people (specifically with tech/programming). And I can't do that if I'm not willing to make the sacrifices for it.

I will.

Blessed.

console.log("hello world");
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Ishan Mishra

There's no wakeup until you are motivated about doing something, don't let bad things happening with you to become an excuse for being lazy. Stay motivated and help society with your skills!