All right, let’s face it: you are only going to be in high school once. With that being said, what I am not about to tell you is that these will undoubtedly be the very best years your life will have to offer you. Adolescence is a really weird and awkward thing, quite frankly. We’re trying to fit into our own skin and find our place in the world, even if the world to us only really extends to the sitting in the right place in the cafeteria. However, that also doesn’t mean that these years have to be the worst years of your life, either. The unique thing about high school years is that it provides us with a few years where we have the chance to discover more about ourselves and try different things to decide what we want to do and where we want to go with our lives. While we are in high school, we are still young, still daring, and, more likely than not, have the opportunities to do things we might not have again. These years are way too important to waste.
So, now that you’ve decided that you don’t want to waste your youth updating your Twitter account every few minutes, watching reruns of The Hills, or playing games on your iPhone, the next thing to do is to determine what you want on your list. Keep in mind that the point of this list is to help you grow, not to remember what you need to get at the grocery store next time. Here are some guidelines to go by when deciding what to put on your own bucket list:
• Does this idea scare you? It should—at least a little. Doing things that scare you or at least make you nervous are healthy. Really healthy. In fact, if you never face up to the things that scare you, you can’t really expect for much growth, can you? If you never got in the water, you never would have learned how to swim. If you never got in the car, you never would have learned how to drive. Once you find that you can accomplish something that at one time, the thought made you wet yourself a little, you can have a better sense of self and understand your personal limitations.
• If it does, why? Does it scare you because you are shy, afraid of heights, unaware of how to get started, a horrible public speaker, bad under pressure, feel unequipped, or are afraid of what others might think of you? Seriously consider the reason behind your fears.*
• Consider the cost. Maybe one of the things you want to do is something big, like starting a club at school, directing and casting a play you wrote yourself, putting together a benefit concert for a charitable cause, starting a band, writing a book, or organizing an event about a controversial political topic. The truth is that some of your fears might come true. Maybe your plans won’t work out the way you wanted. Maybe your ideas will flop. You might lose a friend or two who are unsupportive or apathetic.. What is important to remember is that—as authors of the critically acclaimed book Do Hard Things, Alex and Brett Harris say— “all effort—even failed effort—produces muscle.” If you never try, you’ll never know. And never knowing is a lot worse than losing.
• You’re not Superman. Remember to have fun! Not all of your “to-dos” have to be serious, monumental, or so time-consuming. If they were, when would you be able to relax? Have a few things on there that might seem regular or even silly but will end up being a lot of fun, like bowling a strike with your other arm, learning the alphabet backwards in under 60 seconds, becoming friends with an international exchange student, anchoring an episode of your school’s morning news, or even just getting your grumpy chemistry teacher to laugh.
The most important thing to do is to find the right balance between your big goal(s) and your minor ones. Don’t make a beefy list to impress anyone because in the end, you’ll be stuck with a lot of pain, heartache, and a severe lack of sleep that will affect your schooling, your relationships with others, and your health. Don’t abandon your relationships with your family and friends in order to get these things checked off, because even if you could do it alone, you probably wouldn’t want to.
Just remember this: it’s not as much about the destination as it is about how you got there.
*If it scares you because 10 out of 10 untrained boa wrestlers die, than don’t do it. Don’t be an idiot! You’re not trying to see how many times you can teeter between life and death before you graduate high school. The whole point is to stretch yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically—not get yourself killed or seriously maimed.
