On The Fourth Quarter

Ahhh, senior year. A time for closing loops and making memories. A time for clickbait trying to tell you how to do so. A wonderful time, truly, and it becomes even more wonderful as the 4th and final quarter of the school year commences. Splendid, I tell you.

This is also the time of year when the family's "My Baby Is Growing Up Lawd Jesus" anxiety is really beginning to flare up. I received my cap and gown for graduation yesterday, and was forced to endure a series of startled onomatopoeias from the rest of the room. Mother gasped and clicked away on her phone as she posted her reaction to Facebook. Sister, who is well-known in the family for her ability to express surprise with minimal words, reacted in the only way she knew. Those were the only people in the room at the time, but I'm certain I could hear the gasps of the rest of the immediate family from hundreds of miles away.

Now, I'm not here to start the sentimental countdown clock to graduation, so don't get sad quite yet. I believe I've established before on this blog that the present is the holiest of tenses anyhow. This is a call for you, my valued reader, to make use of that tense. After all, it just wouldn't be a Mornin' Hays post if I didn't decry a common notion as a load of wombat crap.

We often like to perceive the final moments of any period of time to be the most important, but let's be honest here: how much of that is spent doing something? The trailing team in a basketball game will tediously attempt to freeze the clock in the closing minutes, whether by timeout or by the more intimate strategy of barraging the opponent with fouls. We see incomplete art and writing hastily slapped together, eschewing quality in order to reach a deadline. And don't even get me started on that load of crap that they call "senioritis." What's that, you're getting me started anyway? So be it.

I'll skip trying to point out for the 2,015th time that the correct suffix is "-osis" and not "-itis," because grammar just isn't (insert millenial neologism here). I suppose I should also avoid trying to point out that slumps exist every year in school, and the belief that it's any different as a senior was probably just created by some marketing ploy. The real emphasis, I guess, should be on the fact that it shouldn't be used as some half-ass excuse to fold early or to give up personal goals.

You've conquered slumps, you can do it again.

For the sake of time, I want to wrap this puppy up, so I'll begin my series of fourth quarter reflections with a challenge: take time to pause and appreciate what you have now. Not because it will be gone, but simply because it's just a nice, underrated thing you might as well take advantage of. And keep yourself passionate about something despite the anxiety that the close brings. I've learned this year that no door truly can be locked shut for good, and I challenge you to keep all the doors in mind. That's what carries us through slumps and sprints to the finish: a burning passion and an understanding of the time we're given to keep the flame burning.

Mornin' Hays, signing off.