College means that you have to keep up. The environment is fast-paced and not tolerant of many breaks. Efficiency is part of proficiency after all. While it is fair to want work done in a quick and well-executed way, the amount of patience allotted for other areas of life may suffer. When trying to keep up with school, it is easy for me and peers to not have energy for much else when putting so much time and efficiency into assignments. To help myself, I wanted to find an activity that slows down the process of making a product. Outside of work or academics, it is completely normal and actually relaxing to take one’s time on a project. Being able to focus all of one’s energy into a single moment, followed by another single moment, and so on can help shine a light on the present when college talks of the future pretty consistently. While there are a lot of activities that allow people to slow down, I choose to slow down using the creative outlet of painting. For this painting in particular, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and paint a whole person using acrylic paint. In my art classes, when I would feel unsatisfied with a piece, I would feel this sense of dread, knowing a deadline was approaching and that the piece needed to be somewhat “satisfactory” in order to meet the requirements. However, when doing a painting in my own time for my leisure, the additional pressure of needing to match the pace of someone else’s clock was gone. This allowed me to try to paint something new and end up really enjoying the result. Whether someone chooses doing puzzles, going on a run, meditating, or painting as well, being able to be patient with yourself and a preferred activity has given me balance between efficiency and precision.
About the Author
My name is Emma Lorens and I am currently a freshman at DePaul getting my major in psychology. I am aiming to be become a psychiatrist. The topic of this series, coping mechanisms, are important to be because they allow people to overcome difficulties that are inevitable in life.
Read more on the Honors Blog.
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