This week has been hell. I’m generally busy during the semester, but the floodgates of shit opened up on me Sunday and Monday. It was the classic build-up of work from all classes and directions that left me with no choice but to stay up until the sun rises and to do it all over again.

I tried to sit down yesterday and type up a blog post, but my brain felt like mashed potatoes. I was technically awake, moving around, sitting in class, eyes open. But when I spoke, my words came out in the wrong order and all garbled together.

Students, I can confidently say are stretched thin. We are expected to do all our homework, and do it well. We are not to miss class and fall behind, even though we didn’t sleep because we were doing homework and caught the campus plague because of sleep deprivation. We are encouraged and expected to do extracurricular activities because it will look good in the job market; you have to beef up your résumé. You also need a job. Money doesn’t grow on trees, even though it’s paper.

The present moment in school doesn’t exist; it’s a perpetual future in some ways. I have to constantly be on my toes, thinking about what I have to get done today, tomorrow, the next week, in three weeks. Make a list, make another list, write things I’ve done so I can cross them off, one more list. Don’t fuck up.

Even though it feels like a never-ending push to the future and whatever is at the end, work can only be done in the present moment.

I have my own life, and I’m real fucking busy. And I know I’m not the only one. There are lots of other Millennials that feel similarly because we’re trapped in the present moment but thrust mentally into the future, worrying about things that haven’t happened yet and what we’re going to do with our lives. We have to pick our battles.

I do the best I can, which is why writing this blog makes me happy.