My teacher told me that she was proud of me for not following the rules. I had to take my history IB exam on Monday, and I was kind of freaking out in my history teacher’s room. I had been studying and preparing for this exam for literally two years, but I still felt like I knew nothing. And, I mean, I spent a lot of time on my weekend studying. But I didn’t spend all of my time on my weekend studying. I went and hung out with some people. And I’m basically having a mental breakdown in my history teacher’s room, because whenever I do something that’s not studying before I have an exam, even if I like way over prepared for this exam and spent a lot of my time studying, my brain just starts blaming itself and saying, “You didn’t prepare enough for that exam. What are you doing? You’re gonna fail.”
So I’m in her room having a panic attack, and she stops me and is like, “Hey, you okay? What’s going on?” And I basically told her, “I went and I did something fun this weekend, and I probably should’ve studied more and now, like my psyche is all messed up.” And she’s just says “Stop right there. I know that you are all in your head and your parents make you all in your head about the fact that school has to be before everything and that you need to study and study and study. But I am proud of you for breaking those rules. I am proud of you for not studying for the assessment that is for my class and for going out and doing something fun.”
And I feel like that is the first time that I’ve ever had a teacher tell me, “I am proud of you for not studying for my test.” And honestly, I just really needed to hear that because after she said that to me, I looked at myself, I stopped trying to study the morning of the exam, and I went to [restaurant name]. And I just hung out with some of my friends from choir who had finished their AP Bio exam. We hung out at [restaurant name]. I went back, I took the exam. And guess what? I was completely fine, I did not need to study any more for that. I was prepared to write my essays. So I guess this just kind of comes to be a lesson. You don’t need to put all of your time and effort into studying when you do need to have some fun too.
Like every single person needs to have something in their life that they can just use to take a break and have fun. Because — I mean, you do have to have focus, you do have to be prepared. Don’t get me wrong. But you need to also find a balance between living your life and being prepared, especially when it comes to work or school. Because if you don’t have that balance, you’re really never gonna be happy. Because there’s really not a point to do doing well in school or having the highest promotion in your job if you can’t use the benefits from that. Like, what’s the point of going to school, getting a really good job, if you never have any time to spend with the people you care about, and you never have any time to work on yourself or do things that you like? It’s just some food for thought.