Slow Down in Fast-Moving High School

Why appreciating high school matters

Bernadette Whitely, Editor-in-Chief|June 1, 2022

     When I started to write this article, I was going to offer some hopefully wise pieces of advice that I have learned from being at Blake since Pre-K. However, as I began to write, it felt like I followed a generic formula. I was planning to include advice along the lines of taking classes you enjoy, balancing school work and social life, not spending time with people who don’t treat you well, and so on. Although these are solid pieces of advice, they feel slightly obvious and honestly a little overdone. It felt ingenuine to have my last article filled with surface-level advice after four years on the paper and being at Blake for most of my life.

     Aside from random pieces of advice that I have picked up throughout my time at Blake, one of the biggest things I have learned, especially in the last year, is how fast high school goes by. When I was a freshman, I remember my four older siblings telling me to slow down and enjoy high school while I could because before I knew it, it would be over. At the time, I ignored this cliché advice, only to realize three years later that they were right.  

     I didn’t fully understand my siblings’ advice until my senior year when I realized that growing up is an incredibly weird feeling that you can’t prepare for. It’s a confusing mix of both excitement and fear for the future. This feeling was amplified as graduation got closer and suddenly, growing up no longer felt abstract or far away. 

      Unfortunately, there isn’t a step-by-step method to prepare for the future and all of the unexpected turns that will inevitably show up. However, the one solid piece of advice I can offer is to slow down, at least for a little bit. High school goes by incredibly fast and before you know it, you will be forced to make semi-adult choices, like college decisions. 

     For a long time, I took high school for granted and secretly wished the time away. I didn’t take time to truly appreciate everything around me and instead, I was constantly looking to the future. But, after all of that, I learned that in the end, you can just let yourself be, even in the uncertainty, fear, and change. You don’t have to fix and solve everything. You can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing times.