Biting Off More Than You Can Chew

Sometimes I'm just like Calvin

Hey everyone,

Today I am learning a very valuable lesson, making an honest assessment and being okay with the fact that "I can't."  Let me back up.  Currently I'm enrolled in 9 separate courses, 6 of which have a ton of outside of class work, cast in a major Main Stage musical, hold two jobs, am fight coordinating and starring in a senior Thesis film.  Now this is not necessarily new for me, in fact I've taken on more in the past, but this is the most classes I've taken with such a substantial amount of outside of class workload.

With all of these classes, I've made a valuable lesson this morning, which is I can't do everything.  Even before the school year has officially kicked off, I'm already ready to have my skull implode, because at least 6 of those things require substantial outside of class work.  That on top of my two jobs, and extra-curricular interests have forced my hand.  I can either be mediocre in all of them, or I can drop one and successfully do the work for the other five.  For the first time in my life I'm swallowing hard and admitting that I can't do it.  In the past I've viewed my admitting of this fact as a weakness, but now I'm happy i'm making the choice.  Just by dropping one of the courses, I'll have an extra 5 or 6 hours a week to distribute among the rest of the major classes, and managing 5 classes is significantly easier than a full six.

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Now comes the self debate, game.  You see I'm really bad at admitting defeat.  Amongst my friends (and much to the chagrin of my wonderful girlfriend), I am notorious for filling my schedule with way more things than I feasibly should, then not sleeping, doing them all (and if I say so, doing them well) and then getting sick and crashing and burning.  Burning the candle at both ends doesn't quite sum it up, because I also have another flame burning a hole through the center of the candle at the same time. 

I don't like failing myself or others, and I don't like letting people or myself down.  However, I am about to be a working professional in a field where rest, health, and image are part of being a good member of the theatrical community.  Keeping this lifestyle will only lead to consequences in the real world, and I have to nip it in the bud, now. 

That's why I'm happy with this decision, because in life, I have to learn to simplify, to specialize.  When I registered for classes I got flustered and signed up for electives that I wanted to take before graduation, however they are going to negatively affect my work towards my chosen career path, and that has to take priority.  There are always classes available to be taken, and that doesn't change because I'm about to graduate Ithaca College.

Now that I've managed to convince you all of that.  Let's see if I can convince my brain to be okay with it as well.

Until next time!

~Ned

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