It can sometimes be daunting to think about the millions of choices that we make in our lifetime, and how each of these choices send us down one certain pathway in life. Let’s say you’re running late one day. You woke up late, you’re stressing out, and then you spill coffee on your favorite shirt and you decide that you have to change it. As you drive to wherever it is that you are going (work, school, etc.) you see a crash. What if you had decided to get up on time and be productive? What if you decided you could easily cover up that coffee stain so that you could be on time? You could have very well been a victim of that crash.

While this is a pretty terrifying way to think about it, I would like to share a story of one choice I almost didn’t make, and one that completely changed my life.

This was back when I was a junior in high school. I had applied for this summer program called Governor’s School North Carolina in the area of choral music. Governor’s School is a six week summer program for gifted students all over the state of North Carolina. Students stay on a college campus and along with their core classes for their area of study, they are also required to take classes that have to deal with social issues, philosophical issues, and attend seminars about every topic under the sun. Bottom line, it was pretty much a lot of learning, and I applied to the program because I knew it would look great on my college applications.

When I got my acceptance letter, I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t like the idea of spending six weeks of my summer learning, especially not in choir classes. The last three years that I had spent in choir at my high school all but killed any love I had once held for music. I have been singing for as long as I can remember, and I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t sing. To ask me when I started singing would be like asking me when I started breathing. Growing up I was always a part of the church choir, and I loved music class in elementary school. But I finally found real choral music when I was in the seventh grade. I joined the choir, and it wasn’t just everyone singing the same melody together…it was more. It was real. It was a challenge. Throughout all of my awkward preteen years in middle school, chorus class was my safe haven. It was a place when I could connect with people over music whether we were friends or not. It was something that I excelled at. Then in high school that starry-eyed passion that I had found for choir was decimated. Singing in my choir had become something that stressed me out and something that I hated doing. Class was not a safe place, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over every day.

So you can see why the thought spending six weeks of my life at Governor’s School studying choral music was not something that excited me. I hated the idea of it because I had come to hate choir.

 

Through much convincing on my parents’ part, I did end up going. I packed up my stuff and I went to Governor’s School West (GSW) at Salem College. This is one of the very few times in my life when I will happily admit that my mother was right.

 your peers, and to accept and appreciate when others have different opinions. Most importantly, I found my forever people. I me

At GSW I found my love for music again, and so much more that that as well. I discovered what it was like to really enjoy learning, without having to worry about grades and assignments. I realized how amazing it is to have a truly intellectual conversation with t people who became the best friends I could ever have. These are friends that I am still so close with four years later, and who I know will be a part of my life forever. I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

 

What if I hadn’t gone to GSW. What if?

I can’t even begin to imagine how different my life would be if I hadn’t had this amazing once in a lifetime experience. I probably would have quit choir my senior year of high school, and not have gotten involved with music in college at all. Music is the building block of who I am as a person currently. Without Governor’s School, I would have become an entirely different person.

Last week I talked about overachievers in general. The people who do everything. The people who can’t say “no.” The people who don’t like to fail. But how did we become like this? Are we born or made?

By the time we get to collect, we are  all but technologically programmed and wired to strive for success. We got our scholarships, we take honors classes, we joined multiple organizations, got involved in things that would look great on our resumes, and we get our internships. The list goes on. We do what we are supposed to do, what is right and expected. We are programmed. When did we become these robot-like people who follow check lists?

For me personally, I can’t think of a time when my life was not like this, not laid out in a certain path that I was going to follow. Turning in my work on time and getting good grades was a no-brainer. The thought of getting a bad grade on anything was enough to drive me into a cold sweat. I remember one time back when I was in high school, my junior year I think it was, I was starting to get college letters in the mail. They were just the general letters that you start to get after you take the SAT and ACT, telling you about all the things that a school has to offer. My mom looked at me one day and asked me if I even wanted to go to college. She realized that she had never even thought to ask. Going to college had always been the plan. I had never even considered doing anything else other than going to college, and finishing my education.

I would get the grades.
I would be really involved.
I would get scholarships.
I would go to college, graduate with honors, and get a good job.

There was never any doubt in my mind. I now realize that this thinking does not make me some robot-like person intent on completing some mission. This must means that I am incredibly lucky to be able to be so cure about my future. I had two amazing parents to look up to throughout my entire childhood. They both went to college and have done amazing things with their lives. They are still together and love each other. They set the standard that I strive to meet in my own life. Without them encouraging me to always do my best, I might have turned out an incredibly different person.

While I sometimes worry about disappointing them, and not living up to their standards, I know that I have been so fortunate to have them in my life, and create so many opportunities for me.

So… Are we born or made? I think it might be a combination of both.

All of you probably know someone, or multiple people, who you would consider to be an over achiever. These are the people who do pretty much everything. There’s a club on campus and they’re a part of it. They’re in the band/choir, on student government, in an honors society, on a sports team…the list goes on. You know that if you asked them to be a member of your quiz bowl team, improve group, or whatever it is, that they would say yes. Well, they would say yes after pulling out their planner to make sure that your meetings are at a time that they can make work with their schedule.

These people are always on their way to one thing or another. But, no matter how busy their lives get, they’re always the first person to volunteer to help you out if you’re in a bind. Your ride to the airport cancelled on you last minute? They’re on it. Need help with your crazy hard statistics homework? They took it last year and will totally sit with you and explain parameters and critical values for hours until you understand it.

Let’s face it, half of the time you wish you were as involved in everything as these people. They’ve got their lives figured out and you know they’ll succeed at whatever they do. The other half of the time, you get exhausted just looking at them, and are pretty sure that if you were even half as involved as they are, that you’d die.

Well you can trust me when I tell you, we really don’t have our lives together any more than you do. I’m that over-involved crazy person, or I used to be. As early-onset senioritis takes hold of me in my junior year of college, I have come to realize that this “never say no” mentality might have been killing me. In my two and a half years at college I have been involved in more than I ever thought possible. I was on a division one sports team, in a high level choir, the  sga rep/business manager/president of an a cappella group, a statistics tutor for over twenty students, in a sorority, been a founding member of an event management club, and been in the honors program.

What I have come to learn from all of this, is that I needed to find a way to narrow down the things I am involved in, to the things that really matter to me, the things that I am really truly passionate about. While I only managed to cut two of my activities, that alone helped my mental health immensely. I get fewer stress-related migraines, and I no longer feel like I have run a marathon at the end of every day.

For those of you who are like me, I encourage you to look at all the things you do, and determine what it is that you really WANT to be doing, and go from there. It will really help you out in the long run.

In my next post I think I will be looking at what it is that makes the overachievers/over-involved people of the world think that this is how they should be using their lives.

In it’s simplest form, music has been around for thousands of years. It has been a part of the sharing of cultural stories, and as the human population has evolved, so too have musical styles. Now there are many different styles of music, and we have come a long way from simple choral chanting and primitive instruments. Though music has evolved and is more popularized now, I believe that it still serves the same purpose. Whether you are listening to a choral arrangement by Eric Whitaker, or one of the latest pop songs by Iggy, music has a way of pulling everyone together.

As someone who has always had music play a major part in my life, I have seen the power that music has to change lives first hand.

I am a member of the chamber singers at High Point University, lead by Dr. Marc Foster. Not only have I learned so much by being part of such a talented choir, but also I have found a group of 36 peers with whom I have a common bond with. It is impossible to rehearse five days a week year-round, and not create the strongest of bonds with them. We have shared the best and worst moments of our lives with each other. We have contemplated the deeper meanings of the lyrics that we sing. We have seen each other cry because of the emotions brought forward through the weaving of meaningful words and melodies. This choir is one of the safe havens that I have found in my life.

When I was struggling with what might have been the darkest moments of my life, I had this choir and my a cappella group. These amazing people were my support system, whether they knew it or not. This is what music can do. Music can take groups of people who have little to nothing in common, and give them a common ground that creates the strongest bond and sense of trust.

This is the power of music.