For several of the past years, my parents and I talked a lot about taking a family trip to Hawaii. But every time we started thinking about the details, we’d come up with some reason to push it off a little longer. A lot of those reasons were totally valid, a lot of them simply stemmed from the habit of procrastination we had developed.
Then about a year ago, my dad suddenly passed away and the trip turned from an eventuality to an impossibility.
There was nothing special about Hawaii as our travel destination. What we really wanted out of the trip was to carve out time from all of our busy schedules to spend quality time together as a family. But as we waited and waited for that magical week during which we’d all be free and healthy and ready to go, there was a timer slowly counting down to the moment at which that trip wouldn’t even be an option any more.
We all know we should live our lives doing the things that matter to us but it’s incredibly easy to get lost. Sometimes we get lost in things that don’t matter to us at all. We can usually see through that pretty quickly. But more often, we get lost in things that do matter to us. That’s when it becomes hard to tell how it’s stressing us out.
For me, that thing was school. As a computer science major taking upper division courses, my typical week involves around 16 hours of class, over 15 hours of outside studying, and anywhere from 10-15 hours of extracurricular clubs, organizations, etc. Add onto that all the other time sinks of college life and you’ve got yourself a stressful-looking calendar.
As a side note (that I’ll tie back into this point soon), I worked as a software engineering intern over this last summer. What I loved most about working was that it gave me a chance to create a clear distinction between work and the rest of my life. Once I left the office at around 5pm, the rest of the day was mine. Once I left the office on Friday evening, the weekend was mine.
As a college student, you don’t get the privilege of this clean separation of work and play. Instead, work spills into play, play spills into work, and your time management skills need to work twice as hard to clean up the mess.
Before this quarter, this meant that my weekends were when I would try to catch up (and sometimes get ahead) on schoolwork, projects, etc. As a result, I was making virtually no time for the other things in my life that mattered to me. I’d started playing guitar about two years ago but hardly found the time to practice, I knew how important running and exercising would be to my health, but I couldn’t fit it into my schedule, and finally… I knew how much I enjoyed hiking but I only got to do once every few months.
As you can see, I lost sight of so many of the things that mattered to me because I was focused on the other thing (school) that mattered to me as well.
I decided something had to change so I challenged myself to make a habit out of at least one of those things that I value but didn’t dedicate enough time: hiking.
And I mostly succeeded. Aside from one instance (picture above) where I forgot about my challenge until it was already 8pm on Sunday, I managed to squeeze in a hike every weekend.
Along the way, I discovered the gorgeous Santa Monica Mountains, made a couple of new friends, and got 10 great workouts. Aside from those direct benefits, making a habit out of hiking helped me get better and making and keeping other habits. Around week 5, I also started working out 3–5 times per week (something I’ve struggled to do consistently in the past), and even developed better study habits (motivated by freeing up my weekends to hike stress-free!)
There were a lot of obstacles along the way though. There are only 24 hours in a day so dedicating more time to hiking meant I had to reduce time spent on other things like studying and partying. The tradeoff ended up better than a zero-sum game as I found that I was able to study more efficiently knowing that I was doing what I enjoyed with the rest of my time.
The most important result of this experience was the subtle change in my mindset that while doing well in school is important to me, it’s far from being the only thing that’s important to me. Life is short and there are so many things to experience and enjoy. It’s crucial not to zoom so far into your life as it is now that you don’t see and experience the other things that matter to you.
That’s why I’d like to propose a challenge to you. Think of something you enjoy doing but feel like doesn’t get enough of your time. For the next 10 weeks, set aside time to dedicate towards it. It can be an hour a week, thrice a week, or whatever other amount of time you feel is appropriate. All that matters is that you spend time doing what you love.
Lastly, here are a couple more pictures from various hikes that didn’t get included throughout the post.
