by June Jeong, opinions editor

I’m always looking for cute planners at bookstores or when I’m traveling. I jot down lists of what I need to accomplish on each day of the week, write in reminders for upcoming deadlines and events, and mark exam dates and friends’ birthdays. This weird knack stems from my love for organization and direction. Having a tangible record of what I needed to get done consistently encouraged me to be productive throughout the course of the school year. I had a system going: at 5, I started homework; at 6, I had dinner; at 7, I went back to homework till around 11-1; and then for about an hour or two, I spent time relaxing, reading and surfing the web. In retrospect, I see that I was pretty wound up, but the schedule created a solid pattern that kept me occupied and helped me avoid procrastination.

I hit the brakes on the daily order when summer break arrived. Though I was thankfully getting 10 hours of sleep instead of my usual 5, I turned off my alarm and found that I no longer had the motivation or incentive to get up when I did finally wake. My first two weeks were occupied by binge watching Netflix for about 6-8 hours a day, and the rest of my time was spent eating and taking naps. And it was great-at least for a little while. I eventually got to the point where I was on my laptop so much that my dad had to reprimand me for using up most of the Wi-Fi for the month. I took on an incredibly sloth-like, sedentary lifestyle, lying in bed all day because I was too lazy to get dressed and leave the house. From lack of exposure to the sun, I started to look paler than I already was and felt nauseated.

My saving grace from this dip in the road actually started with the DPS center in Bryan. After taking two weeks of a driver’s ed course and waiting many, many hours at the center, only to realize that I had forgotten my VOE, I returned once again, to discover in dismay during the vision test that I’m very nearsighted and needed glasses/contacts to obtain a learner’s license. After visiting a walk-in optometrist, I returned to the DPS center for the third time that day with temporary contacts in my irritated eyes. The receptionist lady greeted me with a “Back again so soon?” and a chuckle. The entire day at the DPS felt like a really bad dream I couldn’t wake up from. Thus, I began my long journey at a mere 10 mph towards actually being able to drive like all my friends can. I was forced out of my lethargy because nearly all of my time was dedicated to driving. For most of the day, I attend the driver’s ed labs at our school from 12:30-4:30, and when I’m not at the labs, I’m either practicing with my mom or studying for the quizzes we have every day. This new routine isn’t exactly fun because it means that I can only hang out with friends early in the morning or after dinner. Though it’s been tiring, I’ve noticed recently how much better I’ve been feeling lately; I’m no longer in a constant state of highway hypnosis. I initially had a hard time figuring out why this is so, but then I registered the fact that having stuff to do other than eating/sleeping is crucial to contentment for most people. It seems obvious, but I think that sometimes it can be easy to fall into this state when your old routine is shifted as you face a detour. It’s made me grasp that I not only (don’t laugh) miss the routine that attending school offered me, but also that I can create a new routine by following a schedule like I did during the school year. Now I usually wake up at sometime between 7:30 and 8 to take a shower and brush my teeth, walk my dog at a nearby park afterwards, do yoga/pilates, have breakfast, and start my day. I know there are many out there who can handle sleeping 12 hours and live the life of a sloth and still feel okay, but I don’t think I’m one of these people. I need a certain level of direction in my day to find a balance between enjoying myself and also being healthy (if this column were a Buzzfeed video, it would be called “Girl Lived Like A Sloth For An Entire Two Weeks.)

In all seriousness, I feel like it’s alright to have a nice lazy day every now and then, but long term, humans definitely need both sleep and at least some order to fully enjoy life. We all already know that being happy improves our work ethic, but the same can be said vice versa: productivity makes us happier. I’m not saying that obsessively buying and hoarding planners or taking a drivers ed class will suddenly improve our quality of life, but when we feel content about our day to day accomplishments, our bodies and minds will react positively. The process works like this: being productive, (whether this means doing homework, working at a job, going on a hike, cleaning a room, etc.), helps build self confidence. There is honestly no feeling like completing a seemingly impossible task and knowing that you did a great job, or being contentedly tired after a long day of getting work done. Having direction in our lives instead of ‘going with the flow’ also makes those in our lives to appreciate and trust us. Obviously, people will give industrious, organized individuals more opportunities and are naturally drawn to them because they can recognize vitality, stability, and diligence. Learning how to fight our natural tendencies to lie in bed and binge eat/watch all day and be lazy is essential to embarking down a gravelly road o self-love and growth in both our personal and professional lives. When life doesn’t go according to plan, a person who has harnessed this strength can see beyond immediate road blocks and find a new way to accomplish the task at hand.