One of my favorite things to do is to bodysurf. I remember when my dad taught me how on a Florida vacation back in the early, gulp, 1970s. (This past weekend I had the privilege of teaching my daughter at East Beach in RI–hey, never mind that her first effort resulted in a complete heels over head 360). My father explained how good timing enables you to harness the full force of the swell just as the whitecaps begin to break at the crest of the wave. If you jump too early or scramble to catch up, you’ll miss it: all the puny human exertion you can muster against the wave’s weighty power proves useless if you try to fight it. The trick is to catch the wave just right and then LET GO. Weeeeeeeee.
The beginning of the school year is like that. There’s no wave of energy like that of a school campus in late August and early September. Students, faculty, and staff are for a breathless moment united in the excitement, intention, and psychic energy directed toward a great academic year. It is quite the wave to catch. And just like an ocean’s wave, it’s a moving target that is virtually impossible to catch up to. The trick is to time it right, to jump in just as the whitecaps appear. Too soon or too late leaves you with that sinking feeling.
At CollegePrepExpress, we encourage you to get caught up in this early fall wave of energy. Write down your goals for the year. Get to all your classes on time and arrive prepared. Take out your notebooks, pens, and/or laptops before the teacher asks. Heck, you might even want to browse the table of contents of some of your shiny new textbooks before your first class and dig in where you’re most interested. Then let go of the results and get carried along by a collective energy more powerful than anything you could muster on your own.
Catch the wave, yo, and enjoy the ride! Should you have any challenges learning just when and how to jump, we’re here to help. 🙂
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