Have you ever just got to that point while doing something where you feel like you could honestly be committed for getting so crazy-obsessed with it?
Well, that’s the current mood I am feeling with a lot of my assignments and projects. I just am at that point, where, I just want it to be done – but in the most perfect, well put-together way.
You can only look at the same project for so long before going insane over it. It almost becomes you. You see it in your dreams and you wake up thinking about it, you get epiphanies about it in the shower and soon, it consumes you to a point where you can’t even begin to fathom anything else.
When you have reached this point, you almost need someone to slap you back to reality. A screaming in your face, you are about to be sent to the nutty farm, wakeup call.
I don’t know why this happens. Maybe it’s because I like to have things done a certain way, or I don’t want to forget anything so I become extremely invested in my projects, but it is beginning to drain me.
It could also be because this is my last year to really practice my craft before someone is going to, hopefully, be paying me to be an expert on it. This makes me believe it is more stress and anxiety over the haunting feeling that I need to get my life together in less than six months than having OCD.
I just want to leave here knowing that I actually learned something that I am able to take away and benefit me in my future endeavors. That is probably my biggest fear – wasting four years of school and leaving here not having learned a damn thing.
But, then again, that is the fear of 99.99 percent of college seniors. The majority of my assignments and projects from my sophomore year on, are going to be featured in my portfolio, so why wouldn’t I want them to be the best pieces of work I have ever done?
I think if I didn’t try as hard as I am, that is when school would be deemed a waste of four years that I will never get back. When you are looking at these types of situations, evaluating your sanity level, you need to be aware of the purpose behind it all.
Yes, I chose Gannon to play lacrosse, but I also decided to go to university because I needed to get a better education. I am a very competitive person – I wouldn’t be an NCAA Division II athlete if I wasn’t. But, I am the most competitive with myself.
I always feel like I can do better, and I can push myself to unimaginable limits because being good at something isn’t worth the same to me as being the best.
It might be a little psychotic, and I understand that. But, I wouldn’t be where I was today if I didn’t push myself through my life the way I do. Yes, I might be going a little mad, but everyone goes a little mad sometimes.
I want my time at university to mean something, and if it means I need someone to smack me in the face and tell me to take it down about 10 notches, I have people in my life who will do just that – and I love them every day for it.

BECKY HILKER
[email protected]