“I’m foxy Cleopatra and a whole lot of woman!” Beyoncé Knowles exclaims in “Austin Powers in Goldmember.”
And so I thought I was too. No, not in the conceited sense, but in the confident sense. I guess you can say that my eyes are bigger than my stomach, or rather, my passion is greater than my abilities.
I desire to absorb my education like a sponge. This is because I love what I am involved in. This semester, however, time is not on my side. It is as existent as my size-one waist.
Tell me “when,” they say as they fill my cup, but I just stare at it in silence as the list of things to do overflows the cup, floods the table and overloads my brain.
I made the mistake of taking on too much. I have too big of a workload this time around.
Six weeks into the semester, I realize that I am not Wonder Woman. Instead, I share more similarities with Humpty Dumpty getting ready for his great fall.
And I find I am not alone in this sticky situation. There are quite a few of us like Pinky and the Brain, who think we can conquer the world and immerse ourselves in everything that comes our way. Sadly, we can not.
I am not trying to say that people should not aim high, for if we do not, we limit ourselves and cage our abilities.
There is a downside, however, to looking beyond the stars instead of toward them: you get lost in the galaxy; the big picture.
A plethora of options is great until gravity takes over and the quality plummets down.
It was not until last Wednesday when that intensity hit me like a brick wall, pried open my eyes, halted my volunteering tongue and forced me to swallow a valuable lesson – how to say no.
It seemed so easy to say that word when I was five years old, so I wonder how it got so difficult.
I guess there are just some of us who have not yet determined where to draw the line because we hold such high expectations of ourselves.
Then there are some of us who feel the need to take on an extra load for fear that it is the only way things will get accomplished.
And there are those of us who are so enthusiastic that we dive head first into the ocean, not stopping to check if we have enough oxygen to make it back up.
It is in these times we feel obligated, indestructible or on a roll that we knowingly accept the challenge.
Whatever our motive, it is important to understand when enough is enough. Chances are, if you are stressing at the sound of the idea, you are going to be stressing when the time comes to follow through with whatever you volunteered for.
Here is another thing: sometimes we are so busy, we lose appreciation for what is around us. In the words of James Taylor, we should “shower the people you love with love” because tomorrow we may not be able to.
I am slowly learning that moderation of involvement is the key. It is the solution to producing quality work, the solution to enjoyment and, most importantly, the solution to sleep deprivation.
Aim for the gold, not the four-leaf clover, and even when things get overwhelming, put on that super hero cape, stand up proud and say, “Si se puede!”
Melissa Lau, a junior journalism and environmental biology major, is managing editor of the Campus Times. She can be reached by e-mail at bitterinque@yahoo.com.
