BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Do Hard Things

Alex and Brett Harris's new book, entitled "Do Hard Things" arrived in the mail today. I eagerly began devouring it, and it wasn't long before I got one of my intense revelations. Okay, so it wasn't really intense. But it is kinda disturbing.. to me anyway.

Just in case you don't know who Alex and Brett Harris are, and maybe the book title is giving you ideas of hanging by your toes or drinking a gallon of mud, let me give you some background. (You can also check out their blog The Rebelution.) Alex and Brett Harris are twin younger brothers of Joshua Harris, the author of "I Kissed Dating Goodbye," "Boy Meets Girl" and other such helpful books. As explained much more eloquently on their blog, they discovered some very interesting ideas about those of us who are commonly called "teenagers."

Our culture today expects very little good of us. Most teenagers are expected to be irresponsible and childish, interested only in having fun. We are completely capable of behaving like the adults that we physically are, but we don't. Why? That brings me to my point. Ready? No....? Seriously? Whatever.. I don't care if you're ready or not!

We live up to what is expected of us.

Really, we do. Fortunately, most of us who are home-schooled have diligent parents who DO expect us to behave like adults. Or at least better than the average American teenager. But I've sidetracked from my point. .... what was my point? Oh, yes.

My revelation. My expectations for myself have dropped sadly in this past year. And actually, (not to try to place the blame on someone else, but....) I think it's mostly due to the Chemistry class that I've been in this year. The whole class started off with fairly good grades, if I remember correctly. But somehow we've slacked off terribly. All of the tests for the rest of the year are going to be open-book. I'm not trying to brag about my grades or anything, but I've never ever gotten a 76 before that I remember..... and I got a 76 on AN OPEN-BOOK TEST. Don't tell me that isn't pathetic. That is so far beyond pathetic that I can't even find a word to describe it.

I'm not blaming it on the teacher. It's really my fault, I'm certainly capable of getting just as good grades without him expecting it of me. I just haven't been expecting it of myself. I even stopped doing the homework. We have class tomorrow, and even now, with almost all of the homework still left to do, I'm writing a blog post about how low my expectations of myself are. No kidding.

And not only have I slacked off my Chemistry, I've slacked off almost everything else. My piano practicing has completely died. I haven't practiced AT ALL in nearly 3 weeks. I did worse than I've ever done before in my piano competitions this past winter. My math grades have been sloping almost as bad as Chemistry. My room (which I'd actually been keeping clean!) has gone back to the mess that it's been for most of my life. I've been staying up late, and sleeping in to disgraceful hours. I have a script that was supposed to be memorized before Christmas break and I've memorized a grand total of one scene. It's all my fault. I AM capable of doing things that aren't expected of me, but naturally it's so much easier if they are expected of you.

So, "Do Hard Things" has nothing to do with unnecessary pain or stupidity, but everything to do with requiring of yourself things that are hard, but beneficial. Like it's going to be really hard for me to drag my grades back up, practice piano, go to bed early and get up early, memorize my script, keep my room clean, and various other things that I need to do. But I'm going to do them, and proudly be one of the "teenagers" rebelling against the low expectations of our society. And I honestly can't believe how sad my list sounds.... I should already be doing all those things, and not thinking twice about it! Man, I have sooooo much work to do.

And just so all of y'all know, I refuse to be called a teenager. *shudder* What a degrading term....

~Lizzie

8 random thoughts:

Olivia Joy said...

Hey Lizzie, I totally know where your coming from!!!
I've totally been realizing the same thing about myself lately.
Thanks for you post, it is nice to know that I'm not the only one who has problems with sleeping in *gulp*
Okay, with all kidding aside, thanks for your honesty, it's an encouragement to me to hear of other young adults who are struggling and overcoming some of the same issues I am dealing with :)

Lizzie said...

Thanks for commenting! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one.
I was beginning to wonder if everybody was off snickering... "Ooh, she has problems! Heheheh!!" :P

Anyway, it's definitely comforting to know that fellow young adults are battling some of the same things. :)

P.S. I noticed in your profile that you hope to one day get married and have 17 kids. I want to have at least 13. And I dunno if you get the same kind of responses that I do, but almost everyone that I've told seems to think that's a ridiculous idea. So I just wanted to say, "you go, girl!" and give you a high five. *high five* :D

Anonymous said...

I found this post very convicting, thanks!! I've been on one level for a while, I'm in my comfort zone toodling along doing my little chores and my school work, and I haven't tried to take the next step. But this post has helped me realize that it's time to take a step up, to do more work and demand greater discipline from myself, and to really open myself up to be a helping hand to others and hopefully be a light in their life. I want to read that book!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Lizzie, when people ask how many kids I want and I tell them at least 17 usually I get that "aww, isn't she cute.....and DERANGED!!!" look.
But, hey, it's fine by me :)

I think it's so sad this whole "American Family" deal with like two kids!!! Come on!!! Our race is going to go extinct!!

The sad thing is even some family members give me that pathetic look :(
Ahhh, well, we shall battle through the looks together :)

So high five right back to ya girl.
(BTW, I don't think I have ever met any other girl who wants to have that many kids.....so this was great......the fact that I'm not the only one).

The only thing I worry about (occasionally) is what my future husband will think.........

Lizzie said...

I'm glad my post was helpful, Abigail! :)

Yeah, Olivia, it's REALLY sad about the "American Family" and it's 2 kids. What's even worse is when "families" only have one kid. That's almost not even a family.

I was just thinking though... our race won't go extinct if you and I have any say in the matter, and wouldn't it be cool if our descendants rule the world once the population dwindles to nothing? lol.

So yes, we will battle the looks... and the snickers and startled laughter and knowing smirks together. And then when our plan for world domination succeeds... :P

I know, I worry about what my future husband will think too. But then I figure, if God wants me to have that many kids, I'm sure He can find a man that agrees.

Anonymous said...

Not to make fun of you lizzie but that 76 really is pathetic... all my grades that were drastically low (17, 34 and that one 56) were on closed book thank you very much!

Funny thing about your post is I was pretty much in the same predicament last year before classes rolled around... It took me probably a it longer then it should have since I actually had to kick myself up to the standards that I really should have been preforming at all along (school wise)

Basically it just comes down to focusing on what needs to be done... I would just shove things that I didn't want to do into a corner of my head and go read a book and forget about studying or taking out the trash... It's made worse when you are home schooled and can do most of the classwork in your head and its easy... I could just coast through the class and get a mediocre grade without any work put into it all...

Anyway- I decided to pull at least my schoolwork together (my room is still a disaster as are other things) you've just got to say "no" to yourself and work on things if you want to get better at them...

At the same time, I don't think that you should keep doing stuff that you don't find any completeness in... If I didn't enjoy drawing I wouldn't work at it... Cause once all the glitter is worked off everything comes down to how much effort you want to put into something... If I grew to hate drawing like I did piano then I would stop it, if only for the reason that I would never do it once I moved away from whomever was making me take it...

I have no clue as to what the point of this amazingly long reply was... It sort of started to get rambly at the end and then my fingers kept typing for some reason... just reply with an "oh thats nice" if you don't want to read through all of this O.o

Lizzie said...

Oh, don't hold back, Kor, make fun all you want. If I cared I wouldn't have shared my grade with the whole blogging world. :P

"At the same time, I don't think that you should keep doing stuff that you don't find any completeness in..."
I wish I could stop all the stuff that I don't find "completeness" in.. but I'm afraid dropping out of high school isn't an option. :D

Thanks for your reply, Kor. It was very helpful. :)

Jessica said...

I totally understand you. I do have a tendency to be all slackish like the majority of my classmates. It's very tempting, considering they still pass. But something out there (um, God perhap?) keeps me striving for more than that. It is kind of pathetic that you're getting senioritis before actually being a senior. But then, I've had senioritis all my life, I think...