Graduation is officially six days away. Holy shit.

 

Even at this point, the thought of leaving high school seems like a foreign, intangible concept. It seems like just yesterday that I was 10 years-old, watching my sister graduate, laughing at the idea that I could ever be in her place. However, now that those days have gone by and school is winding down, I have time to reflect.

Whenever anyone asks me about going to college next year, I usually tell them how excited I am, attempting to preemptively halt the stale “college-is-great” pep talk. But honestly, I get anxious just thinking about next year, and I know I’m not alone.

Moving away from what is comfortable to something completely new can be terrifying for anyone, especially for the first time, but that is not what this story is about.

I have now come to realize that there will always be something in the future to worry about, some inevitable timer slowly counting down to zero. However, with this realization also came another: if we always dwell on what’s coming up, we’ll miss everything in between.

No matter what the next stage of our lives are, it’s always easy to get wrapped up in what’s to come. However, there shouldn’t be anything in our lives (college, SATs, summer plans, etc.) that is able to completely distract us from what is going on now.

It may sound cheesy, but instead of always looking forward, maybe it is better to slow down and take a look at the moments we experience every day, the ones we’d normally overlook in the chaos of our lives.

After all, summer is coming and should be filled with days of innocuous tomfoolery, so who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?

I cannot predict exactly what my college experience will bring, how my beliefs or relationships will change, but I do know that life right now is too important to be overshadowed by my worries about the future, and I plan on savoring every moment.

-Cody Zeger 

 

Four years ago I was lost. My small world was getting bigger than I expected, and faster than I could handle. For a while, I drifted through the vast Redwood forest, pulled to and fro by the tides of social convention and temptation.

I was born like many in our area: blessed with talent but cursed by a dearth of motivation. For a very long time, I never knew what to do with myself. I shunned opportunities and was reluctant to try new things.

I lived in my head far too much. If it had gone on much longer, I never would have started growing up.

Now that I have a modicum of maturity, I do not regret these challenges but relish them.           They’ve helped me learn facts of life I now consider fundamental to my worldview: that a little effort often leads a lot of payoff, that struggle is a part of life, and that it’s far more important to be kind than smart.

On Bark I got some of my first meaningful experiences with the world of responsibility and consequence.

Every story published in this paper will forever stand by my name, and I will stand by those words.

This has increased my sense of tact, as well as my empathy and understanding for perspectives not my own.

They call high school the formative years, and my friends and teachers have impressed upon me more than I will most likely ever realize.

But I can happily say that I’m proud to be a product of my environment. I feel as if I am on a cusp – life’s possibilities are becoming more and more apparent to me by the day.

Living in an intelligent. affluent community has given us a head start in taking on the real world, but the rest is up to us. A              Around here, we tend to expect and demand more of ourselves than those who are less fortunate. As we enter into the world, we must remember to meet those expectations.

 -Kevin Kennis