Richard Meyer's Representing The Passions

Over the course of my undergraduate career, I have been faced with the challenge of balancing school work around extracurricular activities and hobbies, volunteering, social time, and obligations to my job. The stress became further exacerbated when I became interested in the field of medicine, pushing myself to improve my academics and create a better balance within my life. In order to accomplish my goals, without becoming overwhelmed by the challenges I faced, I began focusing on the tasks directly at hand, rather than the entire picture. Narrowing my focus to smaller increments of time, rather than an entire semester, allowed me to stick to strict routines, while feeling less overwhelmed. In addition, I began to more efficiently manage

Before some teens leave home, they are already facing other struggles. Disadvantaged students often suffer academically because of early start time, with counteractive social effects (“Early school start benefits disadvantage kids” 2). In the morning, while students are still lethargic, they are forced to attend classes, when they still don’t have full cognitive functions (Wolfson and Carskadon 12). Later on, after school has ended, extracurriculars start. Grogginess decreases performance in physical activities such as sports, then, as a result, practice becomes ineffective (“Backgrounder: Later school start Times” 1). What does this lead to? Poor attendance, lowered GPAs, and lost scholarships. A survey of Factors Influencing High School Start times confirmed this, “These studies (Baroni et al., 2004; Wahlstrom, 2002a, 2002b) indicate that delayed sleep schedules and early school start times are associated with daytime sleepiness, dozing in class, attention difficulties, and poorer academic performance” (Wolfson and Carskadon 4). This means that in the current situation that most teenagers are in, they are left to make the decision between being well-rested, or participating fully in school. Many choose the latter. However, if schools started later in the day, it could only benefit students’ educations. After delaying school start time, schools reported that

For anyone that has been to an American high school in the past 20 years, it is obvious that students have become more devoted to their academic lives. As universities become more and more competitive institutions in which to be admitted, it is incumbent upon students to rise to the occasion and become worthy competitors as compared to other applicants. A common result of the desire to become an attractive candidate to universities through grades and grade point average is a peak in stress caused by lack of sleep. In addition to coping with the normal adversities of teenage life, students today have more pressure placed on them than ever before. In the race to be at the top of their respective graduating classes, students inadvertently fail to learn or absorb information. Their primary concern at this juncture in their lives is to produce work in an almost robot-like fashion.

“It is difficult to stay up on school work when you play lots of sports” (How Much is Too Much? Video). With late night practice schedules, coaches demanding of off-season training, and some sports becoming year-round, students can struggle to make an effective schedule to also have time for their school work. Most athletes will admit to staying up late at night just to have time to do their homework. Without being almost perfectly balanced, athletes may fall behind and become ineligible for their school athletics. In addition to kids being unbalanced, there are other activities children can do, without the stress and pressure of

Do you participate in sports? If so, you know that being in them takes a lot of time and dedication. Competing in a sport, no matter what sport it is, will also be stressful. Between all the time spent in practice, trading outside of practice, and games, many hours are put into that sport. To make it even more stressful, try to balance school work on top of all the practices, games, and training hours. Now, imagine being a college athlete. Trying to balance working out, practice time, games, homework and studying, and class time all while getting a good night of the recommended time of 8 hours of sleep is near impossible. These students make many sacrifices to play for their college. College athletes risk their bodies and safety, spend most

Secondly, the second main point to maintain your passion alive is to be curious and explore new ways to make you passion more interesting. A good example for this is in “The Ecstasy of Curiosity”, it states, “What humans care about is ecstatic understanding. Children experience this insatiable drive to understand and be curious”(Silva). What this piece of text evidence is saying is that people have a drive to understand things that are new and that they don’t know, which makes people want to understand something even

Upon graduating high school, many students are faced with the decision to continue their education at a higher learning institution or approach the work force: more often than not, especially in today’s society, these students are pushed to attend college, in the hopes of creating better job opportunities and a wholesome lifestyle. When many of these students do approach college, it is clear that the workload is much more strenuous and tedious than what they have previously dealt with, often wondering how they will accomplish seemingly never ending schoolwork. A fraction of these students are also involved in student athletics, adding practices and games to their already hectic schedule: how do these students handle being a student for half

Do your kids, or young teenagers, ever come home and complain about all the loaded school work that they have received? Do they ever say that they do not have time for other activities? Do they look tired and stressed out? There has been many on debates about whether the academic school year should get stretched on longer or not. A key point to keep in mind is that every students’ capabilities are different on many different levels. Young teens are not prepared for the time and sudden dedicated work that is needed for school. Thus, many reasons can lead to the conclusion of why the year should not be extended such as; it can place negative impact on students’ mind, can result in lack of time to do extra circular, and increase the burden of financial costs.

Personality, self-presentation, and time management works best with adolescents towards success. With an adolescent’s personality traits in play, they are able to consider what's best for themselves and make tough decisions for their peers as a leader. Self-presentation is very crucial when it comes to success. Adolescents want to be able to show others they are not trying to delude them about their determination for success. Adolescents want to be the successful individual by presenting themselves with respect and use their voice to make a difference. When it comes to work and activities inside and outside of school, time management is the best technique adolescents used to organize those events. Having organized events allows adolescents to stay on task and finish work on time. All three factors help adolescents strive for success in a scholarly

To succeed in school, adolescents develop diverse self-regulatory skills, such as goal setting, self-monitoring, time management, and self-evaluation. Homework assignments must be transformed into personal goals; study time needs to be allocated prudently; and completion of the goals needs to be self-monitored closely. Adolescents also must learn powerful strategies to enhance various forms of learning, such as note taking, help-seeking, storing and recalling information, reading, writing, and test preparation (Zimmerman, Bonner, & Kovach, 1996). Strategies are also beneficial in assisting them to manage out-of-school extracurricular activities, such as music or sports (Cleary & Zimmerman, 2001; McPherson & Zimmerman, 2002). Unfortunately,

If an individual is not fully committed and invested into any particular subject, the matter will not be completed anywhere close to its maximum capability and potential. Without passion for a commodity, there can be no success. When an individual is genuinely intrigued and suffused in the world surrounding him or her, there is no way for the person not to be victorious. Even if matters do not work out, keeping an optimistic attitude will allow an individual to learn from failure, and if someone is able to gain when they lose, they cannot truly lose at all.

I admire my passionate character. Whenever I find something that greatly interests me, I will work as much as possible to learn more about it. For example, back in seventh grade I became greatly involved in technology after joining the class “Gateway to Technology”, and even now I am in programming and engineering classes, on the path to become an engineer when I graduate. Whenever I decided that I enjoy doing something, whether it comes to hobbies or work, I will devote myself to it.

The best way to grow your passion is having grit, and determination towards your goal. John Silva talks about human beings’ drive for information in his video The Ecstasy of Curiosity, “Human beings don’t care about spectacle. What they care about is ecstatic understanding… In other words, cognitive ecstasy.” Jason Silva refers to cognitive ecstasy as this natural drive in people that make them pursue their passion, even when the odds are against them. This determination, this persistence is embedded in all of humanity, some people just find it quicker than others. Being Persistent will allow you to become more productive, and it will become easier to devote your time to something you love.

We hear it everywhere. When someone gives their life story (whether we want it or not), it follows this format. “I am passionate about this. I took on passion projects since I was young. Even though these people doubted me, I showed them. I had my passion lead my life, and had my heart on my sleeve”. These stories make good drama monologues, but are irrelevant to help other people find their own passion. I think most people see destiny as something already predetermined; we just need to chisel away until we find our gift. The message to follow your passion is hammered into us at a young age, but how do you know what your passion is in the first place? For most teens, the question “What are you passionate about?” is one of the most daunting. In the book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, author Angela Duckworth makes the following point: “Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening”. (103) The word passion gets thrown a lot by people as a buzzword to promote themselves. Duckworth provides a strong definition of what passion truly is, and how we can find it.

The reason I didn’t know what my passion was was because I didn’t recognize knowledge as a passion. Sami was right; I loved to learn and, thankfully, most of my life consisted of it. Now that I knew what my passion was, only one disincentive stood in my way; I needed to accept knowledge as my passion.