Living through a calendar

Beep, beep, beep.
The sound of my alarm clock blares into my ears yet again, signaling the start of a new day.
I get up, stretch and head over to the calendar to look at the tasks ahead of me.
School, lacrosse, tutoring, homework and – in order to function the next day – an early bed time; these are the things I have to look forward to before I get up and start all over again.
I live my life based on a schedule.
I know what my day will hold three Thursdays from now, and what time I will be able to eat dinner next Tuesday. I plan my life around the filled-in boxes on a piece of paper, and pray that I have a few half hours a week to spend on my own time.
While this lifestyle sounds like it bothers me, in reality, I love it. I love the idea of getting as much done as possible, and being able to find ways to fit in more activities – to accomplish more.
Five years ago to now, I’ve watched my schedule become more and more crowded as each activity fills up more time in my day. When I began playing lacrosse, I only practice an hour and a half; today, I practice for about three hours.
That is an hour and a half of my day that has been extracted from doing my homework or finding new passions. But that is what happens as you increase the level of play.
For each activity that I’ve ever joined, the coach or adviser convinces me that I can be successful in other endeavors outside of their activity if I balance my time. Yet, when you have to miss part of their activity for another, it causes the coach or adviser to believe that you do not show commitment to their activity.
Each one takes up so much time that it is nearly impossible to victoriously reach the highest level of success possible in more than one activity.
With workouts every day, I come home at night exhausted, with barely enough energy to complete my homework, let alone join speech and debate or dance, two things which I wish I had time to do.
In our world, in order to be the best at something, it seems that you have to give up most of the other extracurriculars to allow time to focus on every aspect of your talent.
Rather than pulling pirouettes and switch leaps, I have given up some of the things I enjoy to lift weights and watch footage, in order to take that extra step toward peak performance on the lacrosse field.
I have studied play variations and visualized future games time and time again, instead of going straight to bed at night.
However, it has been worth it.
There are so many ways to be mediocre and slide by on just getting tasks completed. But in order to be the greatest – in order to be remembered – it is the self-sacrifice, the extra push that takes you to that point in whatever you do.
In order to stand out, you have to give extra time, dedication and energy to put forth the quality of work that goes above all others’ attempts.
To be the best I can be, I have given up extra activities like ballet and jazz. I have given up the ability to eloquently argue my way through any tough debate. I have set aside hobbies and cultural experiences.
I admit, I have missed out on a lot, but nothing beats the feeling of scoring a goal or winning a tough match.
The rush of the ball sliding past the goalie and falling into the back of the net makes all of the hard work worth it.
Even if being the best means that I don’t get to try as many new things and learn more about different aspects of myself, I am spending my time doing something that makes me happy.
I may not get to be a member of new things, but I am successful at something. Rather than juggling how I will spend my time to fit different activities in, I can put in the extra time to improve on my own.
To excel is to sacrifice. And for me, the sacrifice is so worth the reward – even if I can’t have more variety with how I spend my time.
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Allie Burger, a junior, is a Gazette staff writer.