Let’s be honest, occasionally we tell ourselves small lies to get through the day. For instance, “The day is almost over” at 9 a.m., or, “I’ll just have one Oreo, that won’t hurt my diet,” as if you can ever really have just one. But really, these seemingly small lies we tell ourselves can turn out to be big problems. The following are five of the biggest lies that I told myself at the beginning, and during a semester, of college.
“I have time for just one more episode.” That sounds really great in theory but the problem is, you don’t actually have the time. Most of the time, this lie comes around three in the morning. With a simple math calculation, you will realize that you should have been asleep three hours ago and you have now told yourself the “just one more episode” line for the third time tonight.
“I won’t start a new season in the middle of this semester.” Again, it sounds very nice until one of your friends tells you about this new series she just started on Netflix and all of your friends are beginning to watch it now too. Once everyone else has seen the first few episodes, you can barely stand the conversations at the dining hall revolving around the show that you don’t watch. If you’re anything like me, you’ll start the series later that night so you don’t get any farther behind!
“I have time for a 20-minute nap.” This is my favorite. I take more naps than just about anyone I know. Let’s set the scene: It’s 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon in late November. It is beginning to get dark outside and on top of that, it’s raining a nice soft rain. Your next class doesn’t begin for another 40 minutes. In your head, it is realistic that you could take a 20-minute nap and still have 20 minutes to trudge across campus in your rain boots. I can’t count the number of times that I laid down for a quick nap and woke up half way through the class.
“I am going to read all of my textbook reading assignments this semester.” It feels so wonderful as you sit in your room with all of your textbooks and the promise of a new semester lies ahead of you. You think to yourself, “I am going to read every chapter that is assigned and I will take thorough notes.” Sadly, for the hundredth time, you approach finals week needing to read several hundred pages of a book because you didn’t follow your own advice.
“I will never skip my 8 a.m.” Last but not least, the biggest and probably most told lie of every college student. Going into college, you thought, “I managed to wake up at 6 a.m. every day to go to high school, I can surely be up at 7 a.m. twice a week to go to class.” If you were like me and had this thought, you know that you could not have been more wrong in your entire life and every time you had to drag yourself out of bed on a cold January morning, you all but screamed. Occasionally, your alarm went off at seven and you shut it off, rolled over, and went back to sleep; completely disregarding your class. I was so bad with my 8 a.m. that I showed up late to the in class final, just to give some perspective!
These were the small lies that I told myself. Unfortunately, they also made me tired most mornings, made me late to class occasionally, and made me very stressed in the last week of the semester. But, I would be lying to myself if I said I wouldn’t be doing it all over again this fall semester!
