By Rose Graner
Entertainment Editor
I recently watched “Zombieland,” a movie in which the main character outlines his rules for surviving a post-apocalyptic wasteland populated by the rabid living dead – a place not entirely unlike high school, all things considered. For my senior goodbye, I’d like to impart my own three rules for surviving high school.
Rule one: admit defeat. Let’s face it; if you’re here at all then the situation is already much less than ideal. Acknowledge that you will not get everything your way.
The grades, the classes, the friends that you want—they’re not all going to come your way.
Accept that the only contentment you’ll really achieve will be the feeling of satisfaction you get when you perform to the best of your abilities under whatever circumstances you’re in.
Rule two: challenge yourself anyway. Take AP Euro. Go for advanced English classes. Join that club.
Try out for badminton. If it looks scary and new and the people doing it look relatively happy, then give it a shot. It feels way worse to regret not trying than it does to try and not be spectacular.
Rule three: chill out. Challenging yourself doesn’t mean running yourself into the ground. If something isn’t working out, quit.
There’s a lot of competition in high school. Do you want to know a secret? It all means absolutely nothing. Forget the competition. It’s not worth your time. Push yourself to your own limit, not theirs.
Your teachers and peers aren’t exactly the undead—and high school isn’t exactly “Zombieland”—but you and I both know you still need some help. High school is pretty tough.
These rules won’t solve every problem that you’ll encounter, but they’ll help you out a lot. Above all else, keep an open mind, stay calm, try new and difficult things and remember that it’s impossible for everything to work out.
Leave a Reply