<p>Okay my mom has always been my harshest critic when it came to grades, always telling me I need to try harder, slack off less. Now, I am being her perfect daughter, after like 6 years of trying, I’m getting straight A’s, planning out my future to get into a top tier college with all the APs and Honors courses, skipping over the summer, extracurricular, staying on top of everything, and now she’s telling me I’m doing too much. That I’m developing unhealthy habits, and that she doesn’t care if I get B’s, as long as I’m healthy, because I don’t sleep enough, and have a habit of snacking unhealthily, and drink a lot of coffee, and I’m like ■■■? I’m doing everything she wanted, I now want this, this isn’t about her anymore, its about what I want, and she’s like, I’m doing enough, that I’m spiraling downward, am I? I’m just doing the best I know how to get what I want, to get into a top tier college, I mean, what are your thoughts on this? Have any of your parents reacted this way? I mean, now she’s a obstacle in the way of what I need to do, because I’m developing “unhealthy” habits, I’ll break them later, so what, 3 years of unhealthiness is worth getting top tier. Right?</p>
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False dichotomy. I mean, life only gets harder after high school. If you can’t even accomplish anything now without making yourself sick, that’s a problem. I would think that being healthier would allow you to accomplish more.</p>
<p>I’ve had parents that reacted the exact same way, believe me when I say I know what you are talking about. However, in college I find it is harder to break habits you have grown accustomed to in high school. At the beginning of freshman year, I slept no later than 9, 9:30. However, by the end of senior year I was approaching 12-2 am bedtimes. As much as I hate to agree with her, she has a point. If you are constantly stressed, it means you aren’t always doing your best work. College will only be more time consuming, not the other way around.</p>
<p>So if you need to, step back, take a breather, take some easier classes, loosen up on extracurriculars and live a healthy life. Top tier schools aren’t everything. At one point, I was like you and wanted to go to a top school and then go on to a top law school. Then I did some research and looked at how stressful life and time management was for them… and I realized I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t have time if I followed that path.</p>
<p>So my point is, there’s a limit on things you should be doing. “I don’t sleep enough, and have a habit of snacking unhealthily, and drink a lot of coffee” doesn’t sound too great.</p>
<p>Parents are confusing, but in the end, they just want you to lead a balanced life.</p>
<p>You don’t need to snack unhealthily, drink coffee, and sleep little to be successful and frankly I think anybody would be a lot less happy as a chronically unhealthy student at an Ivy League school than as a normal state school student. The next few months are a good time for you to really think about how you can balance doing well in school with the rest of the things in your life. </p>
<p>How long are you willing to defer being happy and healthy? You’ll suffer for three years so that you can eventually be okay, but what if you do this in college? Is seven years too long? What if you don’t stop being unhealthy and working yourself into the ground when you graduate? Are you just gonna wait until you retire? You seem like you want to be healthy but you haven’t given a good reason why you won’t start now.</p>