When I come to think of it, I find that I balance everything in my school life perfectly. In elementary, I would stay after school with a few other students to cook with my teacher as an ASA (After school Activity). I swam outside of school for many years, and for a nine year old, I got pretty good grades. In middle school, I tried out for every sports team, and joined MUN.  I got into NJHS in 6th grade, considering that being my biggest accomplishments in my student life. In 7th and 8th grade, I made the volleyball and basketball team, and travelled for SAIKAC tournaments for both. In my freshman year of high school, I made the junior varsity volleyball, basketball, soccer, and the varsity badminton teams, and travelled for both soccer and basketball. For almost all those years, I swam and played tennis outside of school. Over all of that, I maintained a 3.9 GPA. I thought myself to be pretty amazing.

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago, that I might have finally thought differently about myself. I made the Junior varsity soccer team, and also joined the school swim team. I was ecstatic, as anyone would be after finding out they made a sports team. I walked to the car after soccer practice was over, very content with my sweaty self. My mom and dad greeted me with bubbliness, and we drove home. It was while we were in the car on the way home that my dad and I got into a lengthy conversation. He was talking about the sports I play, and the effect the extracurriculars I was doing had on my grades.

“It’s no big deal, I’m managing perfectly fine,” I would try to reassure him again and again. This time, my mom joined into the conversation, “Think about it, you can’t do everything. Soccer is four times a week: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On two of those days, you have swimming: monday, and thursday, and also on tuesdays and saturdays for an hour and a half. You are also in a higher math class now, you need to keep up with that. And you’re in debate club; you need to stay prepared for that as well. How can you do everything?”

“You can’t do so many things and expect to be amazing at all of them. No one can. Think about what matters more to you, and choose one thing to do. You can’t do all,” my dad explained. After hearing this, I instantly found myself searching for a solution; anything to show my parents that they were wrong; searching for anything that would tell them differently. But for the first time, I couldn’t. All I replied with was, “We’ll see how it goes first. Just give me a week”. I kept telling myself “everything will work out”. I was sure that for the first time, I might have been wrong about this. Still trying to convince that I would not be able to do both things, I stayed put on the idea that my parents were just being ridiculously unfair, and just didn’t want to take me to swimming or pick me up from soccer because it would be time-consuming for them. I also thought I was being underestimated. The entire time, I would repeat to myself, “I’ll show them. I’ll show them my straight A’s. I’ll show them how many extracurriculurs I can do”.

Going by what I said, I tried out doing both things. The first day, Sunday, I went to soccer practice. After being stuck in traffic for an hour and a half, I finally got home at around 6:30. I did my excessive amount of homework, and got into bed at around 10:30. “That wasn’t bad”, I thought to myself, “I can totally do this without difficulties”. The second day came; I stayed until 4:30 for soccer, sprinted to the car, and went to swimming. Not only was I late, but only got to get in one hour of training. That day, after being stuck in traffic for about an hour, I got home at 7:30. After eating dinner and finishing my homework, it was 11:30. I was tired and felt like I couldn’t function in the morning. Call me a baby, but I need my sleep. Tuesday was almost the same. Wednesday I just did soccer, and Thursday I couldn’t, because it was at the exact same time as swimming. This week wasn’t so bad. I told my mom that her and my dad were both wrong; that they only thought that I was incapable. I never once admit to my mom in that time that I was tired, or that I didn’t finish all my homework at night if I had too much.

The next week came, and soccer was from 4:30 to 5:30 everyday. I would have to miss swimming everyday then, except for Tuesday; and If I didn’t go to soccer, I wouldn’t make the NESAC team. I was flustered with myself. I started to realize then that maybe I only thought I could handle everything perfectly fine. I instilled the thought into my head that I could manage everything and balance good grades and two or three sports all at the same time.

One day when I got home, I threw myself onto the couch, my dad on the other one watching T.V. He turned to me and asked, “why are you so tired?” Irritatedly I answered, “I’m not tired I just have a lot of homework that I don’t want to do”. Instantly I regretted telling him that. I knew now that he would start on how I should only be doing one sport then, or maybe even none at all if I feel like I can’t handle it.

“I told you to pick one sport. It’s better for you,” he said as I predicted. I snapped back rudely after hearing him tell me the same thing over and over again, “I’M HANDLING EVERYTHING PERFECTLY FINE! LEAVE ME ALONE!’’

My dad diverted his attention to me, “I’m not saying that you aren’t able to handle. I know you can, but think about what you really want to do. What do you want to focus on? Didn’t you say yourself you want to get into NHS? Didn’t you say yourself that you wanted to continue swimming? How can you do everything and then expect to be an expert in all?”

I was finally listening to what my dad was telling me. It was finally making sense. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle all of it. I could. I just could never choose. I could never decide on what I wanted to do exactly; I was always so busy trying to excel in everything I never could focus on just one thing. “Choose the one thing you want to become better in, and focus more on that”, he said, “There’s this saying; you can either be the ‘the Jack of all trades, but the master of none’, or you can settle on something you want to improve in. Don’t do everything just because you feel like you can do so much at the same time or because you feel determined to do it”.

It was when my dad told me that saying that it all finally hit me. I would wonder a lot about why someone was so good at something even though they did everything. They balanced everything perfectly, but they focused on one thing. Hearing this made me realize that maybe doing so many things at the same time and trying to maintain my grades wasn’t going to be easy. I really took what my dad was telling me into consideration. I looked at everything I was doing. Was it the right choice to continue on with everything that I was doing? How was I going to benefit from it?

After thinking about it, I quit soccer and continued swimming; I decided it was what I wanted to do the most out of everything else. Not only did my grades go back up; I also got more sleep. Through all the ‘trying to prove my parents wrong’ and the decision making, not only did my dad prove that it’s difficult to try to become exceptional in everything you do; he showed me that it was important to prioritize certain things over others, and to be selective to a certain extent.