Student column: Deal with the busy times

Talk about it

Anyone can tell you that they live a busy life, but it’s not always necessarily true. They may have a lot of stuff to do in a day, but what classifies as busy?

One person’s busy might be another person’s lazy. There is no real answer for the above-mentioned question, but it’s an interesting one to think about.

A typical day of a Farmington teenager goes something like this: school, sport practice, work (if they can find a job … I’ve been told it’s incredibly difficult), homework, and last but certainly not least, friends. Saying it aloud makes it seem like that isn’t much, and that we shouldn’t complain about being stressed and busy, but let me break it down for you.

Eight hours dedicated to school.

Usually at least one hour of homework, depending on the night.

Minimum of eight hours of sleep a night (Which I can almost guarantee no high schooler actually gets.)

That’s 17 hours devoted to just sleep and school-related activities. Add in a two-hour practice or working a shift and that number just keeps on rising.

With the few remaining hours in the day, we try to have a bit of a social life: hanging with friends, shopping, going out to dinner. Or maybe we’d use that time to relax and pop in a movie. Who knows? Everyone is different.

I’m sure an adult’s life is just as bad, with work and just overall being a parent. I can’t talk much on that, but it’s probably just as, if not more, busy then a teenager’s life.

But how do we deal with our own busy lives? In the movies the women always run off to some spa in the mountains to relax, but realistically, who does that? In Farmington, in the free time we have we do things we enjoy around home. To each different person this will be different, but I know for me, free time is very much appreciated.

I may complain about being bored a lot, and just lay around the house, but without this boring time all I’d be doing is running around, which would get exhausting.

Some people use this time to be involved in new, fun activities. The high school has many programs that people can join, as well as the community ed. You’d think that this would make your life seem busier, but as that one saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun, so realistically it wouldn’t. It would make you happy, which helps with the stress of a busy life.

Everyone’s life is busy in a way; you just have to figure out how you yourself can deal with it and live your life to the fullest.

Marissa Opp is a student at Farmington High School. Her column appears every other week.

Tags: high school, opinion, commentary, farmington