Regardless of what some say, high school is not the best time of your life.
It only gets better. And you should get better with it.
LINDSEY B . , AGE 21
Your graduation from high school has much more significance than the decorative diploma that you get for completing your senior year. The diploma is a symbol that you completed the work, but graduation itself marks a new beginning in your life. Once you cross the stage after shaking hands with your principal (and some faceless school board member who mispronounced your name), you will walk through a hole in the time-space continuum, and your life will never be the same.
Just when you’ve mastered the high school thing, you are ripped out of the comfort zone of the old campus, the old teachers (and for some of them, we do mean old) and the friends you have had since kindergarten. You’re suddenly thrown into the abyss of the unknown: life after high school.
Before the panic sets in and you sign up for a second senior year, let us offer another perspective. Sure, it is scary, and we won’t deny that initially your life will not be as certain as the day-in, day-out high school routine, but think about the benefits of moving on with your life and leaving all of that high school baggage behind.
This is your chance to ditch the stereotypes you have carried around since middle school. No one will care about who you used to be or what you used to do. Their opinion will be based on your present performance and personality; their judgment of you will have nothing to do with the reputation you got in the seventh grade. (That will be a refreshing change for you.)
Your new friends will never suspect that you were once an ugly duckling. They won’t know that your appearance was technically augmented and visually enhanced by braces and a nose job.
That embarrassing nickname will be gone forever. Nobody will be calling you “little Patti underpants” or “Tyler the Crier” based on some humiliating episode that you suffered in elementary school.
Best of all, you can create a whole new you. The slate is clean. All of the previously established notions of who you are will suddenly vanish. You can create a whole new you. Maybe an entire overhaul isn’t necessary; perhaps just a little fine-tuning will be all it takes. Whether you want to scrap everything and start all over, or just make a few minor adjustments, now is your perfect opportunity to do it.
When you were just a little tyke, your mother probably laid out your clothes for you each morning. (In the last few years, that hasn’t been necessary, because your clothes were probably already laid out—all over the floor.) And the rest of your life was pretty much laid out for you, too. In high school, you had a few electives, but you had no choice about English, math, science and P.E. But now you are free from such rigid structure. Your future is not laid out for you. It is up to you to decide where you want to go.
If you don’t care where you are going, then it doesn’t matter how you get there.
What if you decide to embark on your journey into the future without a plan? Well, we sure wouldn’t recommend it, but it will take some pressure off you—for now. Planning becomes irrelevant if you have no destination in mind.
In fact, you might be tempted to approach your future with a cavalier, carefree attitude. After all, your past few years have been pretty intense (with school, dating, working, parents, sports and more). Maybe you feel like you deserve a rest.
Failing to Plan=Planning to Fail
As appealing as that may seem, failure to plan at this point in your life will probably make your life harder, not easier. Now is the best time to gain the education and experience that you’ll need for certain jobs and careers. Think about it.
• The older you are, the more complicated life will become. It will be tough to go back to college when you are 34 years old, with a spouse and two toddlers. (And it is no fun living in a college dorm if you have to miss the water balloon fights because you are changing your kid’s diaper.)
• You won’t always be able to live this cheaply. Now you can probably survive quite nicely on a minimum wage job, but that 1993 Ford Escort that you are driving has a limited life expectancy. Sooner or later, you’ll be wishing for a higher paying job.
• Some doors will close if you wait too long to walk through them. It’s too late to decide to be an astronaut, for example, if you are already collecting Social Security.
• There’s no time like the present to plan for your future. Fifteen years from now, you don’t want to be standing on the median at a busy intersection, asking for donations as the cars drive by, with a message scribbled on a piece of cardboard that reads, “I didn’t plan to fail; I just failed to plan.”
Look Past Tomorrow
Your crystal ball is probably a little murky, but take a good look into your future. We don’t mean the future of next week or even next year. Look harder. What do you see in your future 5 years from now? How about 15 years from now? What do you see yourself doing? What kind of job do you have? Where are you living? What are you doing for fun with your friends? Are you involved with your church? Are you helping with any community charitable organizations? What is your family situation? How are you spending your money?
Most people spend more time planning a two-week vacation than they spend planning for the rest of their life.
We know these are tough questions to answer when the ink on your high school diploma is still wet. But a little long-range life planning shouldn’t seem too strange.
Are You Nearsighted or Farsighted?
When it comes to seeing the future, many people suffer from a vision problem. Here are two of the most common:
• Nearsighted. The person with a nearsighted vision of the future only sees what is in the world immediately around them. The jobs they see in the future are the same jobs that their parents have. Their view of the future is limited to the geographic region in which they have lived. Their future is restricted by what they can see in their present experience.
• Farsighted. With a farsighted view of the future, you can see beyond your own experience. Maybe you have grown up in a large metropolitan center, but you can see the possibility of living in a small rural community. Maybe your grandfather was a physician, and your father was a physician, and you always thought you’d be a physician, too, because that is all that you knew. But if you have a farsighted vision of the future, perhaps you can see yourself owning and operating a bed-and-breakfast inn near Vail, Colorado (using the parlor for appendectomy surgeries during the off-season).
The best person for the job is the one who works hard enough to do the job best.
Being farsighted about your future doesn’t mean you have to reject what is familiar to you. It just means that you are open to consider other options than what you have already experienced.
Until now, your personal priorities didn’t matter very much because you were living in a pattern that was determined for you by someone else. Lots of people were anxious to set the parameters of your life: your parents, your teachers and high school administrators, your coaches or employers, even your friends. As you begin life on your own, however, you will find that you have much more freedom to determine for yourself what is important to you.
So, what is important to you? Now is the time when you get to decide for yourself. Why is this important? We’re glad you asked. Lots of things and people are going to be competing for your time: new friends, your roommates, your college classes and your job. Other important parts of your life might get lost in the shuffle: your relationship with God, your parents, your siblings and your old friends. You need to determine now what is important so that you can make sure that important aspects of your life don’t get overlooked.
Just for fun, take a moment to jot down six priorities of your life. This isn’t like a pop quiz; it won’t be graded. We just want you to try a little experiment. If you can, arrange them in the order of importance to you. To make it easier, we’ll even give you a place to write them. Go ahead, we’ll wait.
The priorities of my life include
1. _________________________________________________
2. _________________________________________________
3. _________________________________________________
4. _________________________________________________
5. _________________________________________________
6. _________________________________________________
Now, check to see if those priorities are reflected in your life. Here’s an easy way to verify whether you are living your life according to your priorities. Ask yourself these two questions:
• How am I spending my time? What you consider to be important to you probably isn’t a priority unless you are spending time on it. You know this from personal experience. If someone says that you are her best friend but she doesn’t spend any time with you, you know that you aren’t much of a priority in her life. Similarly, you might think that your relationship with God has a priority in your life, but that is doubtful if your only prayers are uttered during finals week. Where you spend your time is a good indicator of your priorities.
• How am I spending my money? You can learn a lot about yourself by tracking how you spend your money. Sure, most of the entries show money spent on yourself, and there is nothing wrong with that. Hey, you’ve got to eat, and you can’t walk around naked. But have you given any money to charity or ministries? Does your bank statement show that you are thinking of others or just yourself? You’ve got a big inconsistency in your life if you say that education is a priority but your check card receipts show that you are at the movies three times a week.
The enemy of the best is often the good.
The way that you spend your time, energy, money and resources is the best way to discover your priorities. If you don’t like what that tells you, then start doing the things that you believe should have more importance in your life. Take the time to determine your priorities so that you will know what is important to you. Once you have determined what is important, you can ignore the trivial things without feeling guilty.
Here’s a riddle for you:
You have the same amount as everybody else, but you never have enough, and you always want more. What is it?
Don’t waste too much time pondering this question, because time is exactly what you don’t have enough of. As a high school student, your daily schedule was regulated by a series of bells and buzzers. From the ringing of your alarm clock to the classroom bells at school, you moved through your day like Bobo the Monkey Boy, responding with the correct reflex action when you heard each noise.
Your life after high school will be a lot quieter. There aren’t as many bells. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it will be more difficult for you to stay on schedule. You won’t have the routine of high school. You’ll have much more freedom, and it will be your own responsibility to make sure everything gets handled on time. There is so much that you will want to do. You will have to learn how to distinguish the important things from the unimportant ones.
The challenge in time management is not deciding between the important and the trivial. Instead, you will frequently be required to choose between activities that are equally good or equally important. If you have a good grasp on your priorities, then you’ll be better equipped to distinguish between what is good and what is best.
If you are a person who is usually overcommitted, you have a time management problem. It probably won’t go away by itself. People will keep asking you to do things because (1) you get things done and (2) you always say yes when you are asked to do something. Realize that the people who make requests of you aren’t sensitive to whether you are under so much stress that your hair is falling out and your gastric juices could burn through steel. They are primarily interested in getting the job done, and they are glad that you are willing to do it. For your own sanity, learn to say no. You are too young to be bald and have an ulcer.
Are you intimidated by the thought of assuming greater responsibility for your life? Does it seem overwhelming? Well, don’t get discouraged. There are some definite steps you can take to get a handle on managing your life.
Step 1: Dissect Yourself
Put the scalpel away. This is about dividing your life into different dimensions or roles. Most people live their lives in seven basic categories:
Spiritual— your relationship with God
Physical— your health and recreation
Mental— your intellectual growth
Financial— how you spend and save your money
Social— your relationships and activities with friends
Occupational— what you do to earn a living
Familial (it sounds awkward, but it’s a word)—your relationships with your family members.
You are probably having mixed success in the different dimensions of your life. In some areas you may be doing fine; maybe others could use a little help.
If you are interested in knowing what God has to say about the different dimensions of your life, check out these passages:
Spiritual—Jeremiah 17:5-8
Physical—Psalm 139:14
Mental—Proverbs 10:14
Financial— Proverbs 3:9
Social— Proverbs 17:7
Occupational—Proverbs 12:14
Familial—Ephesians 5:21—6:4
Step 2: Determine Your Objectives
In each of the seven dimensions, determine an objective for improvement. Even in the strong areas of your life, there is room for improvement. For example, you may want to set a spiritual objective to get to know God better.
Step 3: Set a Goal to Reach Each Objective Once you have determined your noble objectives, you need to set a goal that directs your actions toward achieving those objectives. Objectives are usually general in nature, but goals are specific. For example, to reach your spiritual objective of getting to know God better, you might set a goal to read through the Bible in a year.
Surveys show that only 10 percent of the population have goals, and only 3 percent have put their goals in writing.
After you have set your goals, put them in writing and review them regularly. Don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach your goal.
You Are a Lifelong Project
You are an ever-changing, evolving creature. We aren’t talking about Darwin’s theory that a banana slug turns into a moose after a few generations. We’re talking about your spiritual, emotional and intellectual growth as a person. Deciding who you are and the kind of person you want to become isn’t a task confined to the age range of 18 to 21 years. It is a lifelong process, but right after high school is a great time to get started.
We wanted to devote the first chapter in this book to discussing the kind of person you are and the kind of person you want to become. Before you go too far with your life after high school, you need to come to grips with your personal priorities and values. Whatever you believe, you will find people who will have contrary opinions and opposing views.
You will find the greatest conglomeration of philosophies, attitudes and beliefs on the college campus. There are many people there who will be tolerant and accepting of who you are and what you believe. Others, however, will have nothing but hostility for viewpoints other than their own. Interaction with people who agree with you and confrontation with those who don’t will be important parts of your life experience. Whether they happen in the dormitory, in the dining commons, on the quad or in class, your discussions about the meaning of life will stimulate and challenge you.
But there is a lot more to college than lofty philosophizing, and in the next chapter we’ll give you an overview of what you can expect.