Now that midterms are basically officially over, Cairn students enter the final stretch of the semester. Suddenly, term projects and research papers are a pressing issue, weighing down the shoulders of the student body. Project after project magically appears on your planner, important notifications zoom through the school about registration and next-semester deposit dates, and an amalgamation of exciting events pop up all over campus. If you thought balancing your school life and your social life was hard before, it just became ten times harder. Your planner fills up to the point where you either have your day planned by the hour (props if you have it planned by the minute), or you toss it in the trash because you just don’t care anymore. But before you toss that book of evil assignments in the dumpster, there’s a few things that you should know.

It’s Okay To Mess Up – Let’s face it. There are two kinds of people in college; those who care about their grades, and those who don’t. For all of you who really, really care about your grades (like I do), here’s an important thing to remember: You don’t have to get A’s to be a good student. Some papers are just hard. Some tests are just difficult. It’s okay to get B’s, C’s, and yes, even D’s or F’s. With the last two, I recommend going to your teacher to request extra credit or some make-up opportunity. But if you get a B, or a C, it’s okay. You can’t get A’s on everything, and that is alright. Which leads me to my next point:

You Can’t Be Perfect – Perfection is the standard that many of us hold ourselves to. However, this standard is impossible. The bar is always raised. If you get B’s on all your exams, and that was your bar, then that will just be raised up to A’s. If you get A’s in all your exams next time, then you’ll reach for 100. And then you’ll reach for 100 for every single assignment. That is the easiest way to wear yourself ragged and waste your life striving for the impossible. Accept that you can’t be perfect. Jesus is the only one who is perfect, and while we want to emulate him, we can’t expect ourselves to be able to be perfect. We will mess up, and that’s okay. It’s okay to mess up in school, it’s okay to mess up in our social lives, and it’s okay to mess up in our spiritual lives. Burk Parson’s is quoted as saying that “there is more grace in Christ than sin in you.” We can’t be perfect Christians, but we can learn from our mistakes and turn from them. We can’t be perfect students, but we can try our best and learn along the way. We can’t be perfect friends/significant others, but we can do our best to love others as Christ loves us. But there is one more important person that you need to remember to love.

Be a Little Selfish – A lot of the time, we take on so many responsibilities that we forget one of our most important responsibilities; ourselves. It’s so easy to get caught up in doing things for others that we forget to do things for ourselves. While it’s great to be selfless, that doesn’t mean you can go abuse yourself ‘for the sake of others.’ Every week, take some time out of your schedule and do something just for you. Watch some Netflix, go out for a walk, color in a book, or play a videogame. Something that is completely just for you. It’s okay to be a little selfish. There are days when you will want to shed all your responsibilities, if only for a little while, and that’s perfectly alright. Take some time out, do something fun for yourself, and enjoy that freedom. Without it, you’re just a work-machine and you aren’t truly enjoying your life. So be a little selfish. It’s okay.

With all the assignments and events upon the horizon, choices are going to have to be made. Time will need to be managed wisely and study tips implemented, but you can do it. All the study tips in the world won’t help unless you work on the psychological struggle of making it through these last couple months of the semester. Keep caring, keep pressing on and never forget to smile. Because at the end of the day, no matter how much stress we have, God is still good, and He’s in control of every little thing in our life. So study on, Cairn. We can make it!