Work Hard, Stress Often--Do Nothing?

This week has been a really good amazing week for me. I had a good bit of homework, but it was nothing like the past three weeks and I felt as if I finally had a hold of what was going on and I could finally have a weekend with no homework, just good friends, fun times, and total and complete relaxation! This all happened until Intermediate Accounting...

This morning, 10:00, I sat down in my chair waiting for my professor to start the class. I pulled out my planner to see what I still had to accomplish which consisted of just a couple of my Cost Accounting assignments, my Cost Accounting Mid Term (it's a bi-term class), and that was it except study for my tests next week. I had a good hold on everything else. I looked to see what I had to do in Federal Taxation--- nothing, Intermediate Accounting--- nothing. It was all good in Shermanville. Class continued and I won't bore you with explaining the intricacies of non-bearing interest notes, commercial paper, credit lines, and other liabilities that we are learning how to account for. At the end of the class I went up to ask my professor a question and low and behold, one of my fellow classmates walks up as well and asks the professor if he could post our homework for the chapter, because she had completed all of her homework and had nothing else to do for the week which was unusual for her. Now if you know me, you will know that whenever I have time off or a moment to relax, I will use every bit of it. This week has finally been the least crazy of all of the weeks and this student just asked for more homework! I was praising the heavens, because he had not posted our homework and she went up and asked him for more!

There are two things that I would like to point out based upon this decision...and the first is a lesson that I was thinking about last night and then was reminded of today. The first lesson is : is deal with the hand you are given. As good old Kenny Rodgers says in his song "The Gambler," "you've got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, and know when to run." Last night I was playing Rummy with a couple of my friends, which has started to be a fun game for us lately to get our minds off of class, and I remember one of my friends saying, "Well what can I do when I have no good cards!" and I remember thinking to myself, "No hand is a bad hand, it just depends on how you handle what has been dealt to you." Basically, whatever comes your way, you are going to have to deal with it at some point, so why not face it head on and make the most out of it. Now you can also take this lesson two ways...

The way I was thinking before I wrote all of that down was that, the student needed to accept the hand that she was dealt. She needed to accept that she had no homework finally and should have started thinking about what else she could do other than homework. Ways to actually live! Watch a TV show, relax, hang out with friends, go to the movies, treat herself and go out to eat with some people, so to a sporting event, who knows, just NOT homework. Now the other way that I have interpreted the lesson above, as I started writing it down, is that I now need to accept the cards that I have been dealt, because now I have been dealt a lot of cards and I need to know how to be able to rearrange them in order for me to make the best play.

For instance, in Rummy last night, I had four Jacks, Two Queens, a six (which at the time was a wild card, so it can stand in for any card I wanted it to), a King, and a four. I knew I had the potential to go out, but I still had to pick up a card to make my play. The plan originally was to play the four Jacks as a set, play the six with the Queens, and potentially discard the King or the four depending upon what I was going to draw. I drew my card and it was another Queen. So how do I most effectively use the card? I saw that I had a Jack and a King of the same suit, so then I knew I could use the wild 6 to stand in for the Queen, so that could be put down as a set. Then I could lay down the three Jacks, because that would be a set. Then I laid down the three Queens that I had as a set and I discarded the four to end my play and end the round. If you got confused with any of that, basically I had an initial plan of what to do, but when I drew the Queen that threw a wrench in my plan. I could have played that very differently but the other options would have left me with a card left and I would have been nowhere (since I had no Queens of the same suit as the Jack and the King that I wanted to lay down). But I changed my plan and was able to make the most effective play.

In the same way, I had a wonderful plan for my homework and how to accomplish it before the weekend, but with the extra potential homework, I may have to rearrange my schedule in order to get everything done. Absolute number 1 rule of cards, no hand is a bad hand, it all depends on how you play the cards!

The second lesson that I learned considering this event, is that work is not the end all be all of life. I know as a college student, that we can get so accustomed to having homework and completing homework at night that it is a little strange to not have homework to do. I learned this actually in high school, that when you have no work to do, you should make the absolute most of it, because you never know when you will get it again. My normal work load in high school was I go to my classes, try and complete homework in class or study hall, I would go home, get a snack, shoot archery till dinner, eat, do homework, then sleep. That was an every day set schedule. When I didn't have homework, that schedule was thrown off and I never liked it, but I realized those were the opportune times to watch TV and hang out with my parents at night, because I knew I was going to college and I had a limited amount of time left before I had to go to college, so I took the time I had and spent that with them and of course my best friend as well, because like my parents, I would be moving away from her as well. The point is, don't get so involved in work that it becomes your end all be all. When this happens, even if it is something relaxing to do, you end up losing time with those that will mean the most to you and you will loose time doing things with them and will miss out in the end. Make sure that when a day comes where you have a sliver of time without work, to make the best of it, because I am sure and positive that the older we get, the more work we will have to do, and the more deadlines we will have to make. There is no time like the present and bask in the eye of the storm, before more work and stress comes your way.