College is a time to build life habits

Welcome back from midterm break! The semester is sprinting to a close and your daily or weekly routine is soon to be tested. Thanksgiving break is about a month away, and the wildness of finals and the great unknown mass of winter break are close on its heels, all severe trials to any routine.

Though school is hectic, the freedom that we have as college students is huge compared to the responsibility of working a full-time job, caring for a house, apartment or vehicle, taking care of a family and much more. But even in such a busy situation, I don’t just want to live my job, (whatever that ends up being) I want to do other things as well. 

For example, I want to continue learning in some way after I graduate. I am not sure if that means grad school or music lessons, but I know that for me personally, this will require some kind of classes or volunteer work or something where I will be forced into learning new things or practicing skills that I already know.

I know this because now, even in my relatively non-busy school life, I do not study without an assignment deadline. I have not spent the effort to build the habit of learning to simply know. There are many other things I aspire to do, but I never make the time for simply because there is something else with a deadline to do first. 

This is something I want to change, and there is no time like the present to begin. All through the first half of my life, my habits and schedules were determined by my parents and what they thought was important. In college, I don’t have my parents urging me in my daily choices. I am an adult, my parents built a foundation of beliefs and habits for me, but I must decide which of those I will continue to build off and which I want to replace with new values. 

As a child, it was easy to go to church every Sunday, the decision had already been made, all I was responsible for was getting ready in time.

Now it’s more of a challenge. Not only did I need to find a church (which was work), but every Sunday I have to get myself out of bed (even harder). I have to drown out the little voice in my head explaining all the (lame) reasons why I am justified in sleeping through Sunday school and should only go to the morning service.

Sometimes I listen to the little voice, but every time I get up and go, I know that it is a decision that I am making for myself, one that is in line with the person I want to be and one that I am making, not one that someone else made for me.

College is the time to build those life habits that you want to maintain through the rest of your life’s raging sea of craziness.