Monday, July 8, 2013

High School Students Need Friends To Survive

Beginning our guide on surviving high school, we’ll start with, in my opinion, the most important aspect of high school, and that would be making and maintaining friendships. I know this may seem blatantly obvious, but it’s easy to get caught up in all of the excitement and stress of high school and forget about the people closest to you.

One of the most important things you have to remember throughout your high school career is that you need to have fun. Without any fun in your life, and treating high school as strictly business, you’ll almost certainly drive yourself insane and crash and burn. If you’re like most people, fun involves being with friends and having a good time. No matter how many honors classes you’re taking, or how many sports you’re playing, you have to make time in your schedule to just go hang out with your friends. It doesn’t have to be extravagant or a crazy party, just hanging out together will help relieve all of the stress that you accumulate throughout the school year.

Friends not only bring the angle of fun into high school, but they are also going to be one of your main sources of motivation. There are many forms of motivation that they provide. When your alarm clock is buzzing and you feel like you’d rather get shot in the foot than go to school, your friends provide that motivation to get your lazy self out of bed and to school, if only for the sole purpose of hanging out with them. Friends also provide motivation to keep your grades up. If your friends truly care about you, then they’ll want to see you succeed and be the best that you can be, so they won’t let you start slacking on your school work. My freshman year my best friend and I were the top of our class in pretty much everything. Sports, grades, girls, you name it. However, as the school year progressed, he started getting caught up in all of the “fame” and both his school grades and his athletic performance started to decline. As I watched this get worse and worse I decided that this really did need attention. So, I sat him down and had a sort of intervention moment with him to wake up and get his priorities back in order. By the end of the year he was back on top with me. This is the kind of support that friends can provide you. If my friend would’ve been completely alone in that situation, who knows where he’d be today. His friendship saved his career.

Friends also provide an outlet to commiserate with. Sometimes you just need to vent about how unfair and horrible one of your teachers are, or how much you hate getting up at the crack of dawn. Friends go through that same thing with you, and they’re more than happy to complain about their high school lives with you. Having someone to talk about these things with really alleviates a lot of the pent up tension that you accumulate through the stressful high school year. Talking to someone that really knows where you’re coming from feels a lot more rewarding than boring your parents about how much your life sucks.

So as you continue your endeavor through high school, it is of the utmost importance that you make time for your friends, look out for your friends, and motivate each other. Good luck surviving high school.


-Brandon

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