Achievement and Enjoyment
Many students often ask me: I need time to study, I need time with friends, I need time for myself, I need time with my family, and I need time to sleep. Where can I find time to do all of that? How can I create a schedule for all activities?
Trying to schedule a number of hours for each activity that you want is unrealistic. Life is about living and NOT scheduling. As students, your time spend always vary, often on a daily basis. The time you spend today will be different from tomorrow. The right thing to do is prioritize your time accordingly. You have different things that you must do today as compare with few years from now when you are working. Of course it will change when you have family or when you have children. There is no perfect schedule that will help you balance all activities but you must understand that time should be spend based on priority in life. As students, study will probably occupies most of your time because it has higher priority than other activities. However it does NOT mean you have to spend all your time studying so try to keep some time for friends and for yourself. The time spend is different for each of us because we all have different priorities and different lives. However, there is a fundamental concept of an effective time management and I call it: “Achievement and Enjoyment”.
Achievement help you to answers the question "Why?" Why do you want a better grade in school? Why do you want a good job, good salary? Why do you want a better car, better house? Why do you want to have a love one, or being in love? Why do you want to have a family and be able to support a family? Why do you want to have children, sending children to school and everything you can think of in a typical life? Most of you probably have some ideas on the meaning of achievement. But we also need to explore the concept of enjoyment too. Enjoyment helps you to give meaning to the achievement and the purpose of what you are living for. As part of a life, enjoyment does not mean having many things. It means Pride, Satisfaction, Happiness, Love, and a sense of enjoying the “Joys of Living”.
Achievement and Enjoyment always go together for a meaningful life. You can NOT have one without the other. Trying to live only with achievement without enjoyment then you will see why so many "Rich" people are not happy, they may have a lot of money, many material things, but deep down in their heart, they are not happy as they should be. They may achieve many things but do NOT enjoy what they have because they do NOT have a balancing life. Try to live a life of enjoyment without any achievement then you will see that you can NOT pretend that you are happy. You may say to your friends that you are enjoying life but without any achievement, you are cheating yourself. Imagine that you do NOT work, do NOT make a living, live with your parents with no job, no income, no school, no friends, no love, no goal, then what will happen?
You CAN NOT get the value from life WITHOUT BOTH Achievement and Enjoyment. Focusing on Achievement and Enjoyment every day in life will help you avoid the habit of dreaming and imagination or the wishful thinking that “maybe something wonderful will happen to me”. You have a brain and a physical body then you should make use of that. Life will give you the value that you want when you live your life to the fullest. That's mean you must achieve and enjoy something every day.
You are responsible for your life and you are responsible for yourself. You have all the answers if you look inside you and ask yourself, when was the last time you achieved AND enjoyed something at school? When was the last time you achieved AND enjoyed with your family? When was the last time that you achieved and enjoyed things with your friends? And how recently have you achieved AND enjoyed something just for you?
You do NOT need a schedule to tell you what to do but you do need to prioritize things and ask yourself what is the most important thing that I need to do today. When you go to school, before you walk in the class, think about what you want to focus on achieving and enjoying at school. Then act accordingly when you attending classes and meet your friends. Why not make sure that you not only achieve something in school, but also enjoy the school work? Why not enjoy moment with your friends in school? If you can do it, you are a person that not only gets things done, but also enjoys the doing. Do NOT consider that school is hard and school works are difficult because sometime later in life you will definitely miss school, missing all the wonderful things at school. Ask your parents, ask the elderly about their best time in life. Most of them will tell you that the best time in life is the time when they are in school; student life is probably the best time as it gives you more memories than anything else in life so do not lose that precious moment.
Many students focus on things that are forcing on them rather than things that they could enjoy and achieve. Many are looking outside, looking to what the movies tell them, what the videogames brings, what the famous people live, and wish they could live like that. They do NOT LIVE but only WISH and that is why they do not achieve and enjoy their time. Most things from the outside are NOT real and they are really vexations to your spirits. The more you look outside, the more you lose the wonderful thing that you have. Many students like to compare themselves with others then become bitter because there always be someone better than them. For students, my advice is to keep interested in your own career, your own goal and be humble; it is a real possession that you have today. And once you focus on achievement and enjoyment as a guide of your day, they are not that hard to implement. So, make it happen, for yourself, your family and all the important people that you care about… Achieve and Enjoy.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
