Step one: Pick a problem, any problem!
Let’s use a simple one — you’re really tired. It’s possibly the most common college student issue, debatably with no solution.
Now that you have your problem, just picture it a little. Feel the tiredness — the kind where your eyes are closing, you can’t stop yawning, your notes slant down the page because you keep nodding off in class. Now that you’ve got it pictured, we can begin.
Step Two: Complicate things, just a little bit.
You wake up for your 10 a.m. class. It’s 8:45, the immediate thought that enters your mind is “NOPE,” so naturally you snooze your alarm. This continues a few more times, until it’s the last possible moment for you to get up, eat breakfast and walk to class if you want to make it on time. And by “on time,” I mean at the last minute possible.
Then you remember — your class is all the way by Old Dorms. The thought of miraculously pulling yourself out of bed, and walking all the way across Grounds seems like the biggest obstacle in your life of all time, ever. Your bed is too soft, too warm, too inviting to ever possibly consider leaving it. That would just be offensive to the bed. You can’t afford to offend your bed, right? Gotta stay on good terms, so you don’t just snooze your alarm; you turn it off completely and set a new one in the hopes of making your next class.
All is well; you go back to sleep almost immediately.
Step three: Add a slight twist.
Thirty minutes later, you wake up with a jolt because your subconscious reminded you that today is actually a terrible day to skip class. It happens to be the day that the professor said he would be asking clicker questions that *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge* might be on the exam next week! Your tired brain makes a loosely modeled devil-on-one-shoulder-angel-on-the-other argument, finally coming to terms with the fact that yes, you definitely should go to class today. Unfortunately, you have t-minus 10 minutes to get there at this point, and like we already said, it’s by Old Dorms. The day’s off to a great start!
Step Four: Keep twisting.
Somehow — somehow — you’ve made it out of bed, hurriedly gathered everything you need in your backpack and thrown in a banana to eat at some point in lieu of breakfast. In your haste, you’ve forgotten bananas in the backpack are a no-go — they just get smooshed and end up infusing your backpack with a banana smell that isn’t likely to fade in the immediate future.
You’re now fast-walking to class. Because it’s so close to class time, there are hordes of people leisurely walking the opposite direction as you, having finished class, not even aware of the struggle you’re going through to make your legs move juuuust a little faster without breaking into a jog and yet also without losing control of your own body parts.
It’s such an effort that you consider cancelling your afternoon workout class because, like, this could honestly take its place. At this point, you’re at the top of the hill outside Clark, your building is visible in the distance and after checking your phone for the time, you see that class has officially begun.
Step Five: “Solve” the problem!
AKA do the best with what you’ve got. You’re late, but at least you made it. As you walk into class, you hastily make sure you turned off that second alarm that was meant for after the skipped class. You definitely don’t want it to go off in a classroom full of students paying attention to the professor answering questions about the upcoming exam. People just love it when that happens.
You only missed a few clicker questions, but in your stressed out haze you already asked someone sitting next to you if they remember what’s been asked so you have a general idea of what you missed. It may have come at the cost of them looking questioningly at your sweating, out of breath, frazzled face before answering you, but hey, you’re all caught up now!
College is one of those times that a simple problem like being tired in the mornings can turn a regular old day into one of the more stressful days in recent memory. Just remember it does happen to the rest of us. In times like those, I turn to my personal motto — you win some, you lose some — and personal favorite emoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ to keep everything in perspective.
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