Planning and time management skills are crucial for college. With daily homework assignments, papers, project, presentations and exams, it’s necessary to plan ahead. Every day for me involves the same process of looking in my planner or trying to remember what all I have to do for the day. Sometimes my planner gets so full of assignments and appointments, I hardly have any time or energy to sit down and unwind at the end of the day. I know that I’m not alone in this. Our world revolves around the time of the day and it seems that more and more of us are planning out every detail of the day. It’s effective for getting assignments completed on time, but what about when the unexpected happens? What about when life happens? Is our need to plan ahead and overschedule ourselves threatening our ability to handle the many surprises life brings us? I think it’s definitely possible.
As much as I like to take control of my life, it’s not possible to take complete control. It’s hard to do, but I know that accepting this will make life much simpler. It’s so easy to get into the routine of things and not only be unprepared for the curve ball life may throw at us, but to also lose our ability to enjoy life and take things as they come. I’m connected at the hip (and heart) to my electronics, especially my phone. My phone enables me to receive and send emails, texts, phone calls, Twitter and Facebook notifications, etc. and I love it. I feel almost vulnerable without my phone. What am I supposed to do when I can’t communicate with the world? What am I supposed to do when I don’t have my phone to occupy my time while walking to my classes? Thinking about this makes me realize that it’s not that I want to communicate with people 24/7, but more that my phone (and my planner) has become almost like a security blanket. I like being able to know what’s going on in my schedule and what’s going on in the world. Without knowing this, I’m vulnerable to the unexpected. I’m left to force myself to actually be in the moment for a second. I’m forced to live a few moments with no control over what’s going on, and with no ability to anticipate what’s going to happen next.
I know I’m making myself out to be a technology/planner-obsessed person, but I just think it says something about me or the world in which we live when I have everything planned out, am overscheduled and always with my cell phone. We can only fool ourselves into believing that we have complete control over our lives for so long, and then life throws a surprise in our faces that forces us to steer off our scheduled path and put our appointments aside to deal with the new obstacle before us.
I don’t mean to preach and I don’t mean to make our world out to be completely consumed with technology and having control over life. But I do think that our generation as a whole is too dependent on technology and too concerned with controlling as much of our lives as possible. So, I urge you (and myself) to occasionally take a break from the cell phones, laptops, etc. and to force yourself to deal with life as it happens to you. We have to leave room in our schedules for the unexpected. As much as we like to pretend that we can control life with our gadgets and planners, the unexpected will happen and we will have to deal with it, ready or not.
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