July 1, 2013 Freewrite -- What Would I Change About Myself

Although there are some aspects of myself that I don’t necessarily like, I think the only thing I would change would be the strength of my persistence and self control. I have realized in the past year that I’m a rather selfish person and tend to make changes at the last minute or ignore things I know I need to do for things I want to do. It’s come to bite me in the ass a few times, especially when it comes to school work.

I’ve always told myself that “I’ll change the habits this quarter,” or “I can let it slip this one time.” The truth of the matter, however, is that it’s something I need to quit doing in order to become the teacher, mother, and overall person that I hope to be one day… and “one day” is getting much closer as I head into my final year of school. I have been working on setting my high priorities and sticking to them (mostly) these past few weeks, but that’s how it generally is during the first chunk of a new quarter or planned activity. I’m hoping to pull through this time and actually stick to the plan of doing everything on time and taking one day a week to myself instead of small bits of each day that end up adding to much more time than necessary to give myself when I have so much homework.

My biggest struggle with this is that I have high anxiety that flares up and often causes hyperventilation attacks if I’m in a situation where I’m extremely uncomfortable. I try to give myself time to avoid these anxiety attacks by going out with friends or just dicking around on my phone while I sit with my dog. Unfortunately, I can’t afford as much time as I try to give myself due to the fact that I’m taking three 15-credit English courses this summer, as well as working two jobs. By postponing homework until the last minute I end up screwing myself over because I go with my selfish plans of wanting to see my friends (who will always be here next week or the week after) instead of buckling down and avoiding the pile of anxiety that comes with the mound of reading and writing I have to do the night before class.