For some high school and college aged students, summer means hanging out with friends and soaking in sunshine, but to many others it means work, work, work, work, work.

I never thought I would say this in my academic career, but I miss school. Heck, I would even make the argument that I’d rather write a two-page paper than work for eight hours a day – hopefully none of my professors are reading this.

The days of going to bed at two in the morning and waking up at noon to play video games and watch TV are over. For me, a typical day consists of eight hours painting in the sun at a tomato canning factory. Oh and then I get home and almost immediately head to the gym to lift weights – or rehab in my case. Am I done yet? Nope. On days that I don’t have a baseball game in the evening I typically head to the batting cages to work on my skills. At about the time I work up a sweat I am then off to the local little league diamond to umpire for the rest of the night. After four hours of listening to parents and coaches complain about how bad my calls were I can finally head home to shower and ice up and head to bed to get some much needed rest before my five o’clock wake up call.

Am I complaining? No, but for me and many others this is what a typical summer day looks like and it’s not fun. Why do we do it? Why do I do it?

Well I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not but college is expensive. Really expensive. And for a college student that has to pay his or her way through college, a full-time job is more than necessary, and more often than not still not even close enough to finish college debt-free. Apart from the much needed income, I believe learning the importance of hard work at an early age will pay dividends when I hit the real world. For the countless hours in the gym and on the field I am simply refusing to settle for mediocrity and preparing for the strenuous upcoming collegiate season that will start the week I return to campus.

Do I want to be laying around and doing nothing? Absolutely. But would that prepare me for a better and brighter future? Not a chance.

So here goes my motivational spiel.

If you aren’t striving to be better every day you wake up and hit that alarm clock then what’s the point? I wouldn’t recommend a schedule quite like mine, but I truly believe the busier you are, the better you will be. By choosing to not sit around and watch the days pass you will learn more, experience more, and set yourself up for a better chance of being successful in whatever you choose to do.