It was pretty late at night, so the bus that I'd usually hop on for five minutes to get home wasn't running as frequently. The weather was nice, the warm and sweet summer air swallowed me up, and I didn't mind taking a little bit of a walk home.
It had been a while since I had walked down this road by myself. Usually when I do, I like to talk to the cars zooming by and give updates on several major aspects of my life: school, extracurriculars, work, family, friends, and love. Talking out loud will do more than thinking to myself ever will.
So I started with school. I am currently taking MATH 200, which is proving to be difficult not because of the course content, but because of a lack of discipline. I brushed it off, making the empty promise that I would work harder from now on.
I moved onto extracurriculars. I touched on how I felt accomplished that I was working with the UBC Esports Association and nwPlus, and how it was surreal that I was in pretty high-level positions for both of them. I thought about the sheer number of raw hours I've given to the clubs, how I would spend evenings at school for meetings later on.
And here it came crashing down on me.
I realized. I realized that I have been tricking myself all along.
I wasted those hours. You see, how my evenings have been playing out for me have been:
1. get off class at 12pm
2. do stuff until meeting
3. go to meeting (usually around 6pm)
4. go home
5. repeat
I have been using the hours between 12 - 6pm for absolutely nothing. I'll start off pretending to do "valuable" work for whatever club and then screw off and do something that is near useless, then throw it all under the blanket and call it "club work". I'm no selfless saint, I don't do anything productive in those hours and I've been ignorant enough to label that time as "work done".
I can't tell you how crushed I felt when this epiphany came to me. It's not that I didn't have enough time - it's that I wasn't using it efficiently. I could have been doing math homework or writing up more stuff for either of the clubs, but instead I'd play Smash or go get food even though my mom packed me lunch. I was angry at myself and I felt so pathetic. I didn't deserve to be considered "busy". I let it all get to my head that I was suddenly one of those "important" people who had meetings every other day and were busy all the time.
For the rest of the walk home I beat myself up like this. I think I've always dealt with my problems like this - I am my own harshest critic (as it should be).
But I think there is a silver lining to it all.
A little over a year ago, I would have been ecstatic to be where I am right now: in the process of going on co-op, heavily involved in two clubs that do work for things that I am passionate about, I have friends who I love and trust, and everything seems to be going fine. Yet I still can't be happy. I said this to myself with a smirk, and I think that I might never be truly content with who I am.
This is a good thing though! It means that there will always be more room for improvement and growth, and that I won't settle. Right now I'm still unrefined and there is a justified reason for me to be unhappy with myself so I am not sure if this trend will continue even when I have "settled down" in life (if there is such thing), but oh well.
Anyhoo, that's all from me tonight. Sorry that this post isn't the most coherent, but I hope that you gained something valuable from it! I still need to draft up my May 2019 post so look forward to that as well :))
