Back To School

This week marks my return to academic life after a 13-year absence.  So, how do I feel about this?  Alternatively, more importantly what am I feeling at this moment?  I feel excited, overwhelmed, and afraid.

I am excited to be challenging myself on a high intellectual level again.  It is exciting to have a tangible goal to be working towards.  This was how I often pulled myself through the tough times in undergrad and graduate school in the past, by always looking at the end goal. 

I feel overwhelmed by the shear amount of information that I now have to digest and organize.  These next few years are definitely going to be a good test of my developing a better system of organization.  Still when I am feeling overwhelmed like this it is hard for me to be able to slow down and focus on what needs to be done.  When I am feeling stressed out and overwhelmed my tendency is to rush through things and get them done.  To succeed in the MLIS program, I will obviously have to fight that tendency.

This last one is easy.  What am I scared of?  Easy, I am scared of failing.  Scared of not passing a class, or getting my degree.  However, as my pastor John Wells has said to me on more then one occasion “I am worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet.”  Being back in graduate school if I so choose to look at it this way, can be an excellent opportunity to grow.  Grow intellectually, but maybe more importantly grow emotionally. Long time readers of this blog know that one of my long-term goals is to change and become a more optimistic and uplifting person.

Charlie has started to challenge me when I have one of my “freak outs”, to talk myself up.  Look in the mirror and turn the “cant’s” into “I wills” and “I am’s”.  There will be a lot of stress these next few years from school.  That is a given, and I have no control over that.  What I do control is how I respond, react and chose to think about myself.  Instead of saying, “I can’t do this, I’m not organized enough.”  I can look in the mirror and say, “yes this will be challenging and difficult, and you may make some mistakes, but you Bryan are smart enough, and a hard worker, you will succeed and get that degree.”