Connor Lee, Period 6, 10/11/22

Modern Mythology 2023

Atomic Habits and Growth

In the last four years of my high school career, and maybe even before that, if you were to ask me what my greatest struggle in life was, it would be self control and procrastination. Entering high school, I had to leave behind a lot of friends, to enter a place where I would find myself meeting new ones. Now, I don’t want to say that I have trouble meeting new people, but I wasn’t the best at it. During this short period of time in which I knew almost no one at this new place of mine, I became quite timely and aware of my decisions. I would finish my work with time to spare and ensure that I put my best effort into each assignment I did. However, when I began to spend more time hanging out and playing video games, I put those above my work. I would always choose to do whatever would grant the most amount of joy at that very moment so I would put the work off until the very last moment. This would lead to stressful and sleepless nights cramming, working and studying. This all somehow took a turn for the worse in March of 2020.

Something that we all once thought would be a nice and short month or two long break would turn into something very detrimental to my habits. With the abrupt closing of schools, there was a short period of time where we had no classes to attend and no work to do. With this, I began to sink hours and hours on end, mindlessly playing video games, watching shows and YouTube. I can’t even count the number of days I wasted just sitting in front of a computer all day doing nothing productive. Even when classes began to run again, there were only three short periods a day with about an hour break between each. With little incentive to actually pay attention as the tests were open book, I spent each and every day playing games while listening to the teacher talk in the background. With the ability to do anything I wanted and all day to do it, why would I want to work now when I could do it later? This way of thinking stuck with me for a long period of time, and still shows in me. 

When we had to come back to school in my junior year, I was thrown back into the harsh reality that is in person learning. Gone were the days that I could spend those seemingly infinite hours on momentary leisure. Feeling like I was missing hours in my day to do as I pleased, I began to spend less and less time on my homework to make up for that. However, now that we were back in person, the amount of effort I was putting in wasn’t going to be enough. Seeing my grades drop scared me and incentivized me to try to pull myself out of this slump that both I and covid got me into. I began to limit myself to only about twenty minutes to relax after doing what I need to do when I come home before starting any work I need to do. I would not allow myself to take breaks unless I had successfully worked for a good amount of time. This alleviated a lot of stress for me and I began to see the benefits of it. However, from time to time, I would forget to follow my standards, and have to remind myself of how lazy I can be if I allow myself to be.