Summer is right around the corner, and I cannot wait. No more assignments to do–just three months of relaxation. I’ll probably go somewhere for vacation, enjoy the weather and play video games with friends. With academics no longer an obligation, I can sit back and relax.
That’s what I wish would happen.
Every year summertime feels more akin to an extended weekend off of school rather than a break from everything. Besides vacation, June and July are clustered with activities I have to do. I will have to get a job, along with taking online courses through June. My times of leisure and enjoyment are being slowly being chipped away by responsibility and other jobs and projects, some relating straight back to school.
There is less and less hours to do the things that I genuinely want to do. In previous years if I wanted to play some video games all day, or spend a couple hours looking through old photos or improving my drawing skills, I could do it. Now I have to sink those hours into online classes and jobs that might make me feel unsatisfied with how I spend my 104 days of summer vacation.
Maybe more work is better than being lazy for three months. Sure, I’m going to have to do school work during June this year, but what did I use to do instead of that? I mostly just sat in my bed and looked at the internet.
The enjoyable hours I remember from previous years really only make up small portions of summer. Those days I tried drawing and got triumphant playing a video game bring back great nostalgia and want for things to go back to how they were, but that’s never how things were. I hardly actually spent actual large amounts of time drawing and when I did play video games I never really had triumphant moments. The good outweighs the rest of the mediocrity of how I spent my summer days.
Non-school days should not be completely unproductive.
While I use my phone as a source of entertainment and new, it’s not very fruitful. I don’t really get anything done just laying in my bed for weeks on end. I access the internet a lot over school weekends too, furthering my idea that summertime is just a long weekend. I find it fine to use electronics for long periods of time, since I usually don’t use phones and computers for a singular purpose and can inform myself on current news and topics of interest. The downside for constant internet use for me is that I never feel too fulfilled of a day that consists just of that. My last few summers have just been an endless lazy trip trying to find as many ways my devices can entertain me as possible, and it’s not just me. Teens now spend up to around nine hours a day on social media. Those nine hours are enjoyable, but it never left me satisfied with what I was doing if I just kept doing it for long extended periods.
Maybe it’s a way for me to cope with the boredom that comes with so much less work over the summer, so it’s okay to waste through it doing nothing really of substance. I have always wanted to use my energy while I still have it in my adolescent years for productivity.
Something such as creating video or art that can influence others as well. I never get around to it because I am watching shows on Netflix.
My ideal school break has never been something I have l actually been able to achieve. I always can’t wait for summer to come, thinking this will be the one where everything is going to come together and I will get sessions to invest in creative ventures. But I don’t end up spending long June hours as efficiently as I should have. I just gain entertainment through the internet every day until I go on vacation or school starts again. I find this to be a very strange form of procrastination, where instead of putting off work I don’t want to do, I put off things I genuinely have interest in achieving, such as improving my drawing skills.
Maybe it’s because watching shows or Youtube videos are much better time wasters than having to get up and write, draw or even go outside and gather some friends together. I am not the only one guilty of this, as more than billion hours of Youtube are watched daily. There’s no extra steps to sitting in bed and watch videos on my devices, everything’s already there. Maybe watching Netflix is pleasurable enough on its own, and that the drawing and filming I want to pursue are not too much higher than my enjoyment level of what I am doing at the moment.
I have been trying to find ways to break through the monotonous cycle of procrastination of actual goals. One of the best ways I’ve found is to get out of bed fairly early in the morning, about 30 mins after I would wake up for school. Getting out bed early helps me break from a cycle of staying in bed all morning until I am hungry for lunch. Just finding and harnessing that motivation could take some many moons, but in the end I feel more satisfied and fulfilled with the time I have spent. I don’t have much left in my developing years, and I want to spend it right so I have a summer proud to be nostalgic for in the future. Maybe getting out of bed earlier is all that takes to make a summer go from okay to outstanding. Every step to better productivity is another step to achieving a healthier and more enjoyable lifestyle.