A new era is here, and I’m not just talking about Pac-12 stuff. I start graduate school this fall, which should be a lot of fun and definitely challenging, and there will be a distinctly different feel to it. Sure, every year is different from the next, but this year will be the first time that I will begin the semester without some close friends attending as well, specifically Lindsay, Zach and Tiff. I will miss them dearly.
With new territory come a lot of unknowns. How will Utah fair in the inaugural Pac-12 season? Who will step up? What changes and adjustments will be made? Will our boosters catch up to the other schools? What will life be like with some of my best friends beginning a new chapter in their lives? Will we stay in tough as much as I would like? Am I really ready for grad school? Is grad school really what I want to do? Am I heading in the direction I want to? What stories will develop in my fifth year at the University of Utah? Will I end up writing a thesis? Which athletes will I tutor this semester? How difficult will it all be?
These questions are not topics that all of a sudden sprung up from the ground and I tripped over them. No, instead I have known that these questions of the future will very soon be questions of the present. These questions of change are ones I have been able to think about for awhile now, but like most things in life, actually dealing with the change is a little bit different than trying to plan for it. And, I’ve always felt it’s easier to deal with the change if I’m at least somewhat prepared for it. These changes have slowly begun to take shape once graduation passed, and they will continue to solidify as the fall rolls on. Thankfully, it’s not like these changes were abrupt. It has been gradual and slow moving, but constant, just like the greater picture of life itself.
I once said that change doesn’t have to be drastic, it doesn’t have to be immediate, and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes I wonder if I was writing/speaking to myself there more so than my audience because there are times when I get worried or stressed about something in life and I feel like a quick decision must be made, but when I remember that most things in life don’t need a split second decision, I calm down a bit. Besides, if something important that I’m doing really does require a split second reaction from me, I’m either playing a sport or I really didn’t do myself a favor by not preparing for whatever that moment was.
A good example of this is studying for tests. Unfortunately, it took me really up to about last year to figure out how I should study for tests, work on projects, and simply just get things done. Since Rome wasn’t built in a day, it makes sense to me that great success, whether it be a good test grade, a successful event, or something like a fun dinner party amongst friends, doesn’t just happen on a whim. I like to joke that winging it is something I do best, but only because my mind is so nuts that many random scenarios have already been played out in my head so that I’m somewhat prepared for whatever we decide. But back to studying for tests. Like most students, I dislike studying. Even more so, I dislike cramming. I never have really done that great on anything I’ve done last minute. I’ve found that it’s so much easier to do little bits or chunks at a time and then review it all with time to spare than to do it all at once. The key is self discipline though, something I wish I really had a lot more of. It’s easy to do something like study or read every day for a few days in a row, but it’s a little more difficult to keep it a habit. It may be simple, but just because something is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Another good example of this is running a marathon. If anyone calls themselves a runner and has run at least a half or full marathon, then you know it’s not exactly easy to just wake up one morning and run one of those suckers. It takes months if you properly train for one of them, and even longer if you want to actually be good at them. Well, let’s be honest, if you really want to be great at anything, it takes a lot of time, work and effort. More often than not, if you just half-ass your preparation or training, once the moment of truth is actually here, you probably won’t do quite as well as you had hoped or could even hurt yourself (trust me, I know firsthand haha). And, despite whatever reasons and excuses I can come up with, we have no one else to really blame but myself.
No one else can study for you. No one else can memorize a passage for you. No one else can truly go to school for you. No one else can train for you. No one else can eat for you. No one else can prepare for you. No one else can live your life for you.
You don’t need me to tell you the old cliché that life keeps moving on no matter what and no one can stop Father Time. Making up excuses never really gets anyone anywhere, and it is one thing to have respect for someone else or someone respect you, but it’s a really wonderful thing if you can look at yourself in the mirror and respect yourself. Knowing you gave it your all and did everything you could is a great feeling. Sure, not succeeding like you would want to is not always fun, but at least you won’t sit wondering if things would have been better if you had trained or studying harder. In order to have a life, I have to have experiences and actually do stuff. That’s really the only way I know if I’ve prepared enough for the inevitable change that comes with living life.
