Focus on what's in my control

This weekend I hit my all time low of the term.

I took a physics test two weeks ago, and scored above average however, my teacher gives everyone retakes regardless of the initial score because the new score replaces the original. I decided to take my chances with the retake. I scored 15 points lower. 

For the past weekend, I’ve cried myself to sleep every night because of that one score. A couple of my classes are on the verge of where I want to be and this past retake test pulled my physics grade down. Though I have two more weeks and multiple exams in most subjects to improve upon, I feel a lot of pressure and I think I’m struggling to come to terms with myself. This morning, playing tennis was extremely difficult. I couldn’t concentrate and I seemed to be framing shots that I wouldn’t otherwise miss. My head was in another space. I couldn’t stop thinking about the work I needed to do and how little sleep I would be getting these upcoming two weeks. 

Why? Why am I overthinking all of this? On Friday night I was conferencing with my math teacher, and he told me I’m overthinking everything. He can tell my head is always in two places at once. Until Friday night, I’d never considered that possibility. Could I really be overthinking everything? I think I am. Instead of finding topics to solidify, I’m too busy preparing myself for a bad grade. Instead of focusing on playing tennis, I’m thinking about what I need to do for physics review. Instead of doing physics homework thoughtfully, I’m too concerned about how quickly I can complete it. Even as I’m blogging, I’m thinking about all the secondary sources I need to go through to write a successful history essay. Simply put, my math teacher says I’m setting expectations much too high for myself, and at this point, I’m in a rugged competition against myself. Coming to terms with myself and my limitations as a human will be my goal for the rest of this term. 

I would like to recenter myself through writing this post. Writing my feelings and thoughts out has pretty consistently been my second favorite ways to recuperate after exercising. Here I go. I’d like to ask myself what is an education? Why am I struggling? How can I improve? When I reconsidered why I’ve been so stressed and a sad this weekend, I said it’s because of that one test. Is that really it? I’ve written about resilience in the past. Is this at all demonstrating my understanding of resilience? I have two more weeks of school, and only one more week of classes. I suppose the most resilient thing I can do right now is to push through and focus on what’s in my control.