Sophomore year. High school.
Winter time.
Wrestling. AP US History. JROTC. Drill Team. High Honors.
15 years old.
The next school year I got very depressed, but sophomore year?
Sophomore year I was a robot.
I remember being stressed out of my mind, nerves had me tightly wound, my stomach hurt constantly.
I didn’t letter in wrestling. Looking back, I should’ve accepted the struggle and went harder here disregarding drill team and letting my grades slide to honors.
I was considered the blue chip cadet though, got chosen top of the top 1% of cadets nationwide.
The history teacher gave out a jobs worth of homework front loaded Monday, Tuesday. Nope couldn’t hand it to us Friday night. So Sunday I’d just go to church and lift weights, nothing school related.
Wrestling meet Wednesday, tournament Saturday.
I’d sleep maybe an hour or two on those wrestling bus rides, gym bag the best pillow I’ve ever had. It was my only moment that I’d not be required to do history work. My internal clock always woke me 10 to 15 minutes out from location.
Drill team competition one Saturday a month. I skipped the wrestling tournament here. I have a picture of a bus full of cadets talking, laughing, me seated at attention, drill rifle vertical between my legs, the contrast, I can still remember the thoughts.
“I have discipline! Discipline is strength!” I felt otherworldly.
I would do history work the moment I’d finished my english classwork plus english homework while still in english class, before the period had ended. The teacher was cool, he’d let me hustle like this.
Basically every moment of down time in school was spent doing another class’s work. Lunch too often enough, many days I sat in the nearly empty english classroom continuing to work.
I’d finish most homework after practice, and before dinner, pass out for 10 minutes seated on a section of the couch, get woken up, eat, and be doing history work most often til 1, 2am.
Alarm was about 5am. I’d lay in bed , my brain going 100 miles a minute for hours. I’d get a little sleep.
JROTC was first period, PT, go hard.
What you got!
This was the song that year. Probably 1000s of repeats on the iPod.
Whistling “anchor’s aweigh”.
I didn’t drink coffee.
I shaved every school day that year.
Every single one.
I shocked some people banging out pushups the second I stepped off a plane.
I’d slam my feet off the bed the second I heard the “dring dring”, it’s like a 6th sense, I was always awake before the alarm.
No one understood how I woke up. The above and immediate hydration.
Under 3 hours of sleep a night was the norm. During track season I felt well rested getting as much as 5 while other kids complained.
One day deep winter the school linebacker was trying to pick a fight with me in the hallway. I didn’t hear a word, just read the vibe. Friends came over to me both asking me why I didn’t hit him, and saying he was trying to bait me. I was in slo-mo, almost hearing trombone as if I was Charlie Brown, my brain going “is he going to hit or not, if he swings so can I, then I can go and sleep during the suspension, sleep ahh, that’d be nice, did I even get an hour last night, where am I, oh yeah school, I don’t get to sleep, what time is it, what class am I walking towards, oh yeah biology”.
I may have been tired, stressed, but I was challenged and learning to rise to the occasion.
Ease results in weakness.
Struggle is a blessing. Overcoming is all. Don’t quit. Never quit!
(Burnout is the slipping of infallible self determination.)
Self discipline and self defined/self chosen purpose is where we make ourselves great.
I knew this at 15. I’m 25!
Persistence & Tenacity