Wake up

Eli — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 06:35:15 +0000

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");

DEV Community: Eli

Wake up