Introspection: Face Yourself and Face Facts

It was that day after I came across a new thought that sparkled my mind like a diamond; I couldn’t help but sit down and ponder on it as I felt it was just for me; I then began to write down the flash of insight that had been lingering in the back of my head.

 In truth, high school does build me piece by piece, and the experiences in those magic years led me to the way I never thought I would be; I have just written about the idea that hovers in my mind by relating it to the experience I once had as they say, no person can give to another any more than they have experienced themselves. Now get comfortable with yourself, and be willing and prepared to learn the lesson I have come to tell you today; as you continue reading this article, I suggest you also continue to process and hypothesize; You can do this by asking yourself, "Is this logical?" "Does what she’s saying make sense?" Or you may say, "Does it tie in?"

 You might be familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland; When Alice, in her travels, comes to a fork in the road, she can’t decide whether to take the left or the right fork; She asks the Cheshire Cat which fork she should take, and the Cheshire Cat replies “That depends, where are you going?” Alice says, “I don’t know,” Guess what he says? “Then I guess it doesn’t matter.” This story made me think about the power of choice and intent over our lives; We are the only ones who can make our way straight using our will; To say it another way, if you have no intentionality or a desire to get somewhere, then you are just only fooling around because it really does not matter if you take either the right or left direction whatsoever. What is attractive about this idea is that if there is no intentionality in doing our work, then our actions have no significance; You have to ask yourself what you want most in life that has to come first; This way,  you can be authentic with yourself and face the fact-By facing yourself. This time, not of the spontaneous choices, but the choice that our mind deems to approve after following our desire or inclination, so you must be analyzing that you make choices for some apparent reason, and those choices flow from your thoughts or desires deep inside of you, again you ask the question, what is thought? Is thought just merely a biochemical, electrical impulse of some sort? As a matter of fact, I cannot emphasize it much; I know that we are people who can think rationally, and have ideas and concepts in mind.

By the way, you can relate this to the law of cause and effect. Sometimes when I think about my learning modes, I criticize myself because I only consider education to serve my pragmatic goal but never know education as an intrinsic end itself, so reader, if you relate with me, especially in your high school journey, do not just pursue education for your practical goal but rather for its own sake regardless of any of its pragmatic benefits.

One of the utmost aspects of high school life is the fact that there is a limited number of hours in a day, which makes it feel like there aren't enough hours in a day to finish everything that needs to. Above all else, I think what matters is to be far more concerned about our current trajectory than stressing over the results. Cause wrong doesn't come from right, and a good present can’t give birth to a bad future. In short, we are the custodians of our deeds but not the results that flow from them. As the saying goes, “What we do determines who we are”. Now pause and think about this quote that will allow you to break out of your status quo. Let this sudden realization enlighten your thoughts, as every fire begins with a flame. Our choices determine who we are now and who we could be. See, nobody is after our will and decision. However, the number one consideration here is procrastination. Leaving things for the last minute is a common habit we have. Studies conducted on this issue state that about 80% of high school students procrastinate on their day-to-day tasks. However, rectifying this can be difficult because people have their reasons for procrastination. Those reasons can be pressure, lack of energy, perfectionism, anxiety and depression, so on. Therefore, you must identify personally the problems you are dealing with. This time you should take effective breaks where you don’t overload your prefrontal cortex with decisions. But no, I am not saying your hands should refuse to do the work by making such an excuse. Procrastination is essentially irrational because it makes no sense to do something you know will bring a negative consequence.

You may be familiar with Parkinson’s law, the idea that says work expands to fill the time you have allowed to do it. For example, the time I allocate to do a certain task is how long that is going to take for me to complete the task; I would let you experiment with yourself to see how you can perform and evaluate the quality of your work.  As a teenager( or at any age ), your sole, full-time job is studying the world through the frameworks given to you; Consequently, what you make of the time given to you is up to you as you go towards the future you might have and then,  you will be able to pinpoint where you might need to step in by taking the time to consider some of your priorities and organize your life based on them.

•  If you forget everything I mentioned in the article above, just keep this in mind: devote yourself unreservedly to your legitimate purpose, then this will give you a much better way to approach life analytically.

                    Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. 👇