Day 1: My thoughts and personal reflections

This post was written by Ashley Berges

  “The 10 Day Challenge to Live Your True Life, Day 1: Your time and energy are important!

In Chapter 1, Berges states, “Time doesn’t stop and because of that ,we have to prioritize what we want to spend our time doing.”

As a seventeen year old in high school, not only am I dealing with school work , and college preparation but I currently maintain a job on the weekends ,an internship a few days a week and also make an effort in making time to do volunteer hours and go to the gym. At times I feel more stressed than I should, I feel that the work I do is not enough. I feel responsible for spending my time appropriately and doing something productive. There are days, when staying at home and just watching movies wearing pajamas is better than being social. Staying home, relaxing in bed, and eating cereal can be the most rewarded feeling because you get to rest and have some much needed alone time. Having alone time is nothing to be ashamed of, being alone can make you more happy with you. Enjoying the small things in life and being a child at heart is a must. This includes: going out to the park, swinging on the swings, going for ice cream, and taking an adventure to the zoo.

Do you sometimes feel that you have put yourself on the back burner because you are always doing things for other people?  ” For the most part, we do these things because we don’t want to deal with conflict and we want everyone to like us”, stated Ashley Berges.

There are times where I’d rather just go along with what a person says because of being scared to disagree and the situation ending in bad terms with the person. Simple stuff like this affect us later on because we may agree or disagree to something that we don’t like. Growing up in a traditional Hispanic household, I was taught that every time someone gave you something ,you’re suppose to show appreciation no matter what.  For example when we go to parties and they serve us food , we have to finish it all because it is rude to not eat the food and throw it away. Even at times, taking a harsh comment and smiling through it to not affect your job or to level down to the other person. When I was growing up,  I was told that fighting was never the answer and I agree but it was never clear what exactly was considered fighting.  When I was bothered by others I would just stay quiet and not defend myself because I thought that was considered fighting. My parents are very friendly, too friendly at times… and there is nothing wrong with that but I hate to see them taken advantage of . I currently work at a movie theater and there are times where customers are not the friendliest, but I choose to not argue more and make it into an even bigger deal. I choose to keep my cool although I’’m going crazy inside. Instead I take the proper procedures and move on with my day.

“All of us have wished for more time in a day” stated Ashley

More time in the day is all I ask for, I go into school at 8:50AM, I wake up at4:45 AM to be at the gym by 5 AM , get out at 6:30 AM  , head home to get ready have breakfast,and be at the bus stop by 8AM. Class ends at 4:15PM by the time the bus drops me off and I walk home by the time I actually get home it is already 4:45PM. Now I only have enough time to,eat,take a shower and get back to do homework,specially with these new hours that it gets dark outside, the day shortens.This affects me to not be so productive until I have to stay up late night and only catch a few hours of sleep.Recently there have been days where I go to sleep at 4 in the morning to get my to do list done,it does not bother me but there have been situations were I just fall asleep and forget about my list and just say whatever I’ll get it done tomorrow or the following night.To me late nights are worth staying up ,but how can I stretch my time,finish my to do list and still get few hours of sleep? This question happened to be more of an alarm to take action and start worrying about the important things in life, rather than those that just bring me down and cause me headaches and pain. No matter what your age is, we all go through rough times , whether they’re relationship, body image , financially , at home problems, anything in general we all somehow manage to give too much importance to non important things . For example ,a person criticizes you about how you dress.Well first of all it is your body your choice but we let it sink in and we start judging ourselves,thinking that perhaps they are right. Why am I wearing this dress if it shows my belly rolls? Why am I wearing this shirt if you can see how unfit my arms are ? We start judging ourselves and becoming our own critics.

“Many times we must set boundaries due to others actions and behaviors” stated Ashley

High School has been a different experience than what I expected, I imagined it would be similar to high school musical but not at all. I’m not going to lie and say I love high school but I am not ready to graduate. High school is overall a positive experience but there are just days where I don’t want to attend. I have lost and gained friends, I have made actions I regret, I have been on and off the right path,it has just been four years full of lessons.With all these lessons ,I have learned to set boundaries between people and events going on .I have learned to not want to please everyone or change for people because no matter how much you change of yourself there is always going to be someone who disagrees with you, dislikes the way you dress, the way you think. At the end of the day you can not please everyone, with that being said just be who you are and do what makes you happy , our days are too short to not get the best out of them.



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