“You’re personal vibration or energy state is a blend of contracted or expanded frequencies of your body emotions and thoughts at any given moment. The more you allow your soul to shine through you, the higher your personal vibration will be.”
-Penney Peirce
I didn’t want to start this thing off melancholy. The composition’s entirety was conceived in a slipstream of caffeine and upbeats, and I refuse to defy the inspiration. Not to mention, to follow an epithet about personal vibrations with early morning doldrums seems counterintuitive.
This time of the semester is the toughest. Last week, it all piled on. So much to do, so little time. My life away from academia disappeared. It slipped through my fingers before I ever had a chance to clamp on for dear life. The alarm clock every morning, like a smack to the face, and the walk from my bed to the bathroom sink felt like a death march. And did I march! Into class and out, and on to the next one. From class to the library. From the library to class. Skipped the gym all week. No time. Need sleep.
But not this week.
I spent the weekend devising a plan to break through the resistance: Build mental momentum in the morning and ride it into the night.
Have you ever seen video footage of a fighter in the locker room whopping himself in the face in a last ditch attempt to beat the pre-fight jitters out of his medulla? Maybe you’ve seen the football player rocking back and forth in the tunnel. No music. Just a rhythmic and focused demeanor, imagining the task at hand so that the thoughts may manifest themselves into the physical world.
Before the rooster crowed, I did both of those. Smacked the sleep out of my eyes, showered, brushed teeth, dressed. Then rocked back and forth in front of the mirror, tuning into a 136.1 Hz frequency that comes from everywhere and thought about all the things I was going to accomplish.
Then I head off to school.
Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Music has always been a matter of Energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel. I have always needed Fuel. I am a serious consumer. On some nights I still believe that a car with the gas needle on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio.”
Everyone has their pregame playlist. Maybe you don’t call it a “pregame” playlist, but if I was a gambling man, I’d wager that you have a particular set of songs that you spin when you feel compelled to get to moving and shaking. Mobb Deep, Mac Miller, Post Malone, the Stones, EARTHGANG, Wale… You get it.
Mine has been on full-tilt boogie since the inception of the plan (with the exception of class). The music is driving me from class number one, to class number two, and so on and so forth. Without it, my plan goes the way of a white crayon.
After class, I hit the gym. Our physical well-being is intertwined with our mental health. It’s important that I give my brain a break, and let my body bear the abuse for a while. Yesterday, I went for a 20-minute jog. The day before, I swam and stretched out. It doesn’t always have to be Olympic preparation. A little sweat and heavy breathing goes a long way.
I refer to the library as the homestretch. My last push of the day. I’ve decided it imperative to finish tasks I was assigned today, tonight.
Once something is put off once, it becomes easy to put that thing off a second time. And a third and fourth and so on. I pull out hammer and chisel and chip away. However long it takes until today’s work is done. Tomorrow’s has begun.
I decompress on the drive home. No pre-game boogie. Maybe a podcast or audiobook. Nothing special. I’m just keeping it light. Coming down without becoming aloof.
Dinner. Shower. I pack my bag for tomorrow, TONIGHT. No Netflix, no TV. Tucked in, lights out.
I pray and wait for the rooster to crow.
For that first smack in the face.
The Award-Winning Texas A&M University-Kingsville Student Publication
