The New School Year

These days, the youths of our society are continuously failing to reach their full-potential in most tasks they're faced with. They do homework to get it done, not to learn. They talk to family for the sake of having a conversation rather than to cherish the time together. They go to work, spending the day counting down till when they can go home. But by living life in this manner, you're no longer appreciating life. You're zooming through it as if the next day will hold something miraculous. But the next day is still mundane, and once again, you're just trying to get through it. Soon years go by and you wonder what happened to those days. What happened was your life silently flew by in your attempt to get through each event. No significance was attached to each indivisual event; rather, the days are remembered in mass. Recollection can no longer be made because there was no attempt to live it up. Time is precious and shouldn't be wasted in such a manner; it should be taken full advantage of by dedicating full effort and desire, regardless of the task. Living in this manner will do no harm, and rather will help in the future because you're full potential will be attained.

As summer was ending, I, like most others, was dreading returning back to school. I wasn't ready to have to wake up early every morning and do a bunch of homework. It didn't seem anywhere near as pleasing as staying up late and having time to hang out friends whenever I pleased. I knew that as soon as school would start, my life would basically be over. Two days prior to the end of summer, I had to go to school as a Link Leader in an attempt to guide the freshmen and teach them valuable lessons by playing games. I woke up in the morning dreading it, hating myself for waking up early for some freshmen. As I got to school, I reunited with some friends and made some new ones as well. Music started playing and we started pumping ourselves up as freshmen walked in to excite them about school. As silly as it sounds, trying to pump them up actually ended up pumping me up! I was starting to love helping out, because I was having so much fun being involved at the same time. That instant my whole perspective on junior year changed. I didn't want to just get through it; I didn't want to spend the whole year dreading each upcoming day. I wanted to do it. Everything. And that's precisely what I'm doing. I got myself involved with everything I could in every aspect of my life. Cross Country, Swimming, Soccer, Kameryanima (Religious Leader), fasting for Ramadan, Link Crew, Interact, Village in Action, Tutoring freshmen, Habitat for Humanity, and not to mention officially being in the IB Program now. I know it sounds so crazy, lately people keep asking me how I'm managing it all, especially Cross Country and Fasting at the same time. Honestly, I don't know how I'm doing it. I don't know how I'm able to actually handle all these things and still manage to be alive. All I know is that I absolutely love always being involved. I love meeting new people and I love being busy, knowing I'm doing something productive. I just feel motivated to just do everything, and that motivation has made me excited for school. The first thing that used to come to mind when I thought of school was "Hell." And it still is for most others too. But honestly, right now I'm loving it. It's managable if you stay on top of things, you just have to keep yourself motivated to do it. There's so many opportunities school brings along with it, and you just have to learn to take advantage of them. I realize how wonderful it is that I'm enjoying school, because I'm going to be spending a majority of the next two years at school, so I might as well love it. It'll make the experience so much better than if I spend the time dreading it. So now I feel ready to take on whatever the year has to throw at me, because I feel motivated to overcome it and use it to my benefit. I can feel the difference in myself too. Now I feel as if I'm enjoying actually learning. I feel as if I'm going to school to actually shape and improve myself in every subject, not just make the grades. I guess it's a sense of maturity that dawned over me, I'm not quite too sure. All I know is that I can feel the difference. The change in mentality. I feel as if I'm suddenly awakening. I'm done wasting time and I'm ready to make a difference; ready to be the best I can be.