If you ask any student about how they’re doing lately, you’ll probably hear the same generic answer “I feel behind”. Behind on jobs, behind on schoolwork, behind on college plans, just behind in life in general. It’s such a common feeling to have these days, but we have to wonder why many of us feel this way.
A part of it comes from the amount of pressure we have to succeed before we finish high school. Between sports, jobs, classes, and more. Even when you feel like you’re doing the best you can, it may seem like someone else is doing more, doing it earlier, or doing it better. When you constantly compare yourself to others it makes it harder for you to focus on your own progress.
To get a better insight, we talked with Brian Lyons, a senior and a starting middle linebacker on the football team. People think that athletes are always confident, but Brian said he feels the same amount of pressure like everyone else. We asked him “What makes it hard to keep up?” and he said “ Football took up a lot of my time. Games, practices, lifting, and film days. Most of the time I would get home late at night and still have work to do. But then I would go on Instagram and see other people post about the offers they got and I felt like I was missing out on certain things.”
Brian’s honesty made us realize that most high schoolers experience the same thing. Feeling like you’re behind isn’t a mental disease. It means that you’re growing as a person, and growth isn’t always on your timing. The real problem is not that we are behind, but that we want to be perfect and have everything figured out.
Ms. Furano Senior English Class. Taken by Chardae Pittman
