This is an inspirational speech by Laz Buhrmann to a graduating class of 97. I know this sounds cliché, but I think everyone should watch this video version of this speech put to music along with touching images…it really enhances his words and gives the speech an overall greater emotional impact! WATCH IT NOW IF YOU HAVE’T ALREADY! I’m serious…WATCH IT!
This speech reminds us of the practical things we should be aware of and thankful for, the things that most people forget to really think about. I know that it changed how I view life after hearing it…it made me more aware of what I should be appreciating and paying attention to, especially after college. It kind of lessened my fear of life after graduating. It’s comforting in a sense as well as moving.
Sleep. Where do I even begin… You could definitely say I have a love/hate relationship with sleep – it loves me and I hate it. We all need it though, right? But why?!
I literally struggle with this question everyday and no one can seem to provide an answer I like, or even an answer at all for that matter. Even those who study sleep are still not exactly sure of its intended purpose. All that seems to be known is that humans sleep, mainly at night, and that the body suffers harm without it. However, it is still relatively unknown as to why and how lack of sleep causes the body to suffer (there are many strong theories and a lot of research though). All I know is that my body loves sleep, but I do not! Although over the past few years my body seems to have adapted to minimal sleep (this could be an illusion to me), I can definitely still tell when it’s struggling sometimes.
I know my previous post pertained to similar subject matter, but hell, I’m still a senior college student after all, and these are the kinds of thoughts I have about life!
I suppose most of you reading this are probably saying something like “is this girl nuts?” But I also suppose some of you share my hatred towards sleep. Is it blatantly obvious I’m a senior in college? I think so ha. I’m now on the tail end of my fourth year with my battle against sleep. I’ve grown to LOVE being awake at night. I know that’s strange, but I feel like I get so much more done at night. If I didn’t have sleep to worry about I would stay up day and night. Which is why I wish we didn’t need sleep!
Wouldn’t it be awesome if sleep was an option, or a “leisure activity?” I guess I wouldn’t want that to be for everyone though, because one of the best parts about not sleeping at night is being awake when most people are not. I guess I’d rather wish to have a super power to only sleep when I wanted, without a need for or a reliance on sleep.
I know you have to somewhat agree that sleeping is kind of a waste of time… I feel like I’m missing out on life sometimes, don’t you? Maybe not feeling like I’m missing out on life so much as feeling like I could be living so much more (living to me is being active). Life is so short anyway…why are we programmed to sleep for practically half of it?!
There’s so many things I want to do because I enjoy them, like this blog for instance, but I feel like I don’t have time to do them because I have to do things I “need” to do, like write massive essays every week in order to graduate. This blog is something I started because I think it is fun, but I feel like I don’t have the time I want to spend on it (hence the minimal number of posts), even though I think it is personally more fulfilling for my life than schoolwork I’ll never use again. I know I’m coming off a bit harsh, but I’m graduating in a few weeks and I haven’t had time to think about or plan for my life after college because I’ve been too busy doing schoolwork that isn’t even pertinent to my major! I’m not saying my current schoolwork is pointless, because it is still helping me grow intellectually, rather I am just expressing my frustration because the benefits of said schoolwork aren’t seeming to outweigh the costs (on my life, on my time, etc.).
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t enjoy sleeping every night and/or sleeping in, but after I do so I always feel like I could have or should have done something more useful with my time. I know my body “needs” sleep to function optimally (which is useful time spent for most people), but I resent sleep for exactly that reason! I don’t want to have to sleep for hours of the day/night just so my body can function. I just want to be able to do everything I want to do, and sleep is cutting my time to do so almost in half!
I do have to admit that some of my hatred towards sleep comes from my thyroid problems (when my thyroid is “out of whack” it causes me to be overwhelming tired/exhausted and also slows down my metabolism). I guess I hate being tired more so than actual sleep even. I know I would personally give anything to never feel tired ever, ever again! I think it’s pretty obvious most of the world feels this way as well…there’s pills to fix anything now! Pills to keep you focused, pills to keep you awake, pills to make you relax, pills to make you fall asleep after you took pills to keep you awake…pills, pills, pills! It scares me that this something people of all ages have to deal with too. Pills to help kids and pills to help adults, taking pills to fix you or to help you function better has become practically normalized (at least in the U.S.).
I wish this feeling I have would end after college, but I feel like it most likely won’t. There’s always work to be done and you have to do it if you want to “survive.” That’s why everyone is always telling you when you’re young to “find something you love to do, that you want to wake up to do everyday for your job.” However, most people don’t turn out that lucky. Why else do you think adults stress that so much to kids? Most people have to do jobs they don’t enjoy, but have to do anyway, which leaves them less time to really “enjoy life.” In the spare time they do have (not accounting for “sleeping time” at night), they have to deal with being tired most likely. Wouldn’t it just be easier if sleeping/feeling tired wasn’t even something we had to deal with? (Aside from the other usual sentiment of “wouldn’t it be easier if everyone got to do what they wanted to do, like have a job they loved?”)
Unfortunately, sleeping/feeling tired is something we have to deal with. So, despite my efforts to push my body to the limits by pulling probably too many all-nighters a week for an average person (as well as consuming massive amounts of caffeine, etc.), the “need” to sleep always overcomes me eventually. Thus, my battle continues…and I remain on team no sleep! (It’s a college phrase…surprising?)
Once again, I write this as I am drinking Red Bull and have just pulled yet another all-nighter…
Shouts out to anyone else who’s on team no sleep today!
P.S. – There is a song that describes my feelings about wanting to do what I want with my life and hating/dreading the things I “have” to do/will have to do…it’s called “I Could Be The One” by Avicii and Nicky Romero – the video portrays it best since it has added dialogue to parts of the song as well as a relatable video storyline. WATCH IT! TRUST ME…YOU WILL RELATE!
“I feel like I’m trapped in somebody else’s master plan. Go to school, get a job, get a mortgage. All I’m really doing is dying…”
So, you come to college after years and years of living a forced structured life…and now all of a sudden that’s all out the window. Your classes aren’t on a fixed schedule every day and no one is there forcing you to wake up and go to sleep and do things at certain times. For me at least, this has thrown my body all out of wack…
I have discovered that I accomplish much more at night than I do during the day. Since my classes are all at completely different and random times – say one day I have classes from 9:30 am to 3:15 pm and the next day I only have class at 4:00 pm – I have become accustomed to a pattern of doing my work at night and sleeping during my allotted amounts of free time during the day. This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing, except I am about to re-enter the “real world” where most people work by day and sleep by night…now what do I do if I like being awake at night? Find a night job? That isn’t very likely…so I guess I am going to have to completely re-teach my body. It somewhat saddens me…I mean, I’ve grown to like being nocturnal I have to admit…
Nighttime to me is the time when I can fully be active and think and get things done. I think it is because I like knowing that most people are asleep…it is somewhat comforting to me for some reason. The daytime has too many distractions for me…it’s sunny (or at least light out) and people are everywhere and doing so many things. But nighttime is different. It’s peaceful. It’s a time where I can both clear my head and think more clearly about things. My friends literally call me crazy, but I just say I can’t help it, my body just adapted to this lifestyle and for some reason likes it. However, this love of being nocturnal has also brought about negative consequences – the main one being that in order to maintain the nocturnal lifestyle, one needs extra stimulants (e.g. coffee, Red Bull, Five Hour Energy, adderall, etc.). It’s the only way that someone can both go to classes during the day and do work during the night (unless you have superpowers, which let’s face it, no one really does).
So basically, my daily life consists of waking up, drinking coffee, going to class(es), drinking Red Bull, maybe more class, drinking more Red Bull, eating at some point (sometimes), figuring out what I need to do later that night, more Red Bull, going to the library, more Red Bull (and hell, occasionally even adderall – everyone knows lots of college kids do it, unfortunately), work, work, work, more Red Bull…and the cycle goes on and on (at least for me).
WHAT DO I DO AFTER COLLEGE?! I know that this is not good for my body…I know that I need to change my lifestyle, and probably before college is over so I can adjust, but HOW?! I have gotten so good at it…at getting everything done this way. I mean I know many Americans drink Red Bull, coffee, Five Hour Energy, or some form of stimulants every day, but it just sucks that it has to be that way! That we all have so much to do, that we HAVE to do, in a day’s worth of time. We constantly have to do more and more everyday just to keep up, let alone get ahead. How am I supposed to take time to figure out what I want to do with my life, to figure out what I want out of life, if I hardly even have enough time simply to get shit done that doesn’t even really matter to me? The only conclusion I’ve come to so far is to work both day and night…its’ the only way to accomplish all that I want to with all that I have to at the same time.
So, for now at least, I guess I’m continuing this weird lifestyle I’ve developed even though I know it may not be the best…I know most of you are probably reading this and are either relating or thinking I’m absolutely nuts. But this is just one of the many things I am thinking about, and realizing about myself, as I try to figure out what I am going to do with my life and what I want out of life after I graduate college in May (which is SO soon). I am sure there could be worse things to discover/realize about oneself…thank you UNC. I mean that both literally and sarcastically. Obviously, literally, I thank UNC for the amazing education and degree I have/will receive, but at the same time sarcastically, for leading me to develop this kind of lifestyle due to the immense and challenging workload. Anyway…cheers to anyone relating to this post! Good luck!
I write this as I am drinking Red Bull and about to enter yet another all-nighter…
I have discovered that indecisiveness is the biggest killer of accomplishment…
I know that I have always been indecisive, but while creating this blog I discovered that it has hindered my life in many ways and will continue to do so unless I make some serious changes.
Indecisiveness has negatively impacted my life in three major ways:
1. Procrastination: This seems to be an obvious outcome of indecisiveness, although I am just realizing this. I procrastinate EVERYTHING! And it is not because I am lazy, or unmotivated, but rather that I can never make a decision on what to do first, what direction I want to take, what I outcome I want, or what strategy I want to use to get things done. Procrastination hinders accomplishment because it is hard to accomplish everything you want to do, especially in the best way you can, if you constantly put everything off simply because you cannot make a decision about anything. Sometimes it is not even that I necessarily put off a task entirely, but instead end up procrastinating because it takes me forever to make a decision about each minute part of the task, which leads to the task taking much more time to complete then it should. Take for example this blog, I have wanted to create a blog for about a month or two now but am just doing so because of procrastination – I could not decide what I wanted my “theme” to be, or what I thought the driving purpose behind my blog should be, etc.
2. Trouble Creating and Achieving Goals: This is an essential part of accomplishing what you want to do in your life, but for me this is a nearly impossible task! It stems from indecisiveness about what I want to do with my life or what I want out of life. Therefore, I end up feeling like I constantly never accomplish everything I intend to and/or want to. This then furthers my confusion and lack of confidence about what I want to do with my life or what I should be doing with my life.
3. Missing Important Opportunities: Being indecisive has led to me missing out on many opportunities in life…I end up putting off making a decision about whether or not to do something, and up missing out entirely by either forgetting about it or waiting too long to make a decision about whether to do it or not.
Overall, however, being indecisive has negatively impacted my ENTIRE life! Indecisiveness is like a domino effect, it subsequently affects everything having to do with an initial decision. Even a simple decision such as deciding what to wear in the morning can take me forever, which then leads to possibly being late for class or having less time for a more important activity, etc.
My biggest discovery about my indecisiveness has been what I think facilitates it…my desire for perfection and my fear that I will not get the outcome I expect and/or want. I have realized that I need to fix this ASAP! How can I go through life not making decisions simply because I am scared that things will not go the way I planned? I CAN’T! I need to go with my gut more. I need to take more chances. I need to let go of my fears and start actually doing things and being confident in what I want/feel in order to lead a more fulfilling life!
Distinctively Daphne 