Like an Amusement Park

Sometimes life feels a little bit like an amusement park. With people running everywhere trying to see and capture every moment, rollercoasters zooming around twists and turns as riders scream in the distance, and several young children chowing down on a big bag of blue cotton candy, from an outsider’s perspective this can look like total chaos. There appears to be thousands of different things going on, flashing lights, bright colors, and loud noises. From a bird’s eye view, this may seem like an overstimulating, grown-up playground.

This time of year especially, it can certainly feel as crazy as an amusement park. It feels like there is ALWAYS something going on, like graduations, weddings, banquets, end of year celebrations, and sports. There’s always something to do and somewhere to go. While from an outsider’s perspective this may seem like unmanageable chaos, there are a few small things we can do to keep our amusement park in good shape this time of year.

• Keep an Organized Planner

Amusement parks have maps that tell us where we need to go to find the attractions that we want to see. There’s sometimes even a schedule of events that tells us when the shows or parades are happening. These are tools that amusement parks use to ensure that everyone can make it to everything they want to experience. We can use a planner as this same type of tool to ensure that we get to see and experience everything this time of year has to offer.

• Set Your Priorities

Before we make a trip to any amusement park, usually we have an idea of the things that we want to be sure to do on our trip. It could be a certain snack that your friend recommended, or maybe it’s the newest ride that everyone has been talking about. Typically, when we have this list of “must see” items, we prioritize those in our day. Much like an organized trip to the amusement park, we must decide which events we must attend during the busy season of our lives. When we prioritize these “must see” events, we can ensure that we feel like our time is being spent where WE want to spend it.

• Prioritize Yourself

Finally, any trip to the amusement park would not be complete without the upset, half-asleep child in the stroller at the end of the day. Experiences like this can wear us out! To avoid embodying the upset child in the stroller, we must remember to prioritize ourselves when creating our schedule of events. We owe it to ourselves to ensure that we have time to take care of ourselves too! Consider setting aside a few days a week to stay home and get caught up on homework or prioritize cleaning your room before it is time to leave for the event, or maybe just ensure that you can get a full night’s rest before a big end-of-year exam.

Our lives may feel like an amusement park, but that doesn’t have to be a negative thing. We should take the time to capture these moments, take risks and ride the rollercoasters, and always set aside time for a big bag of cotton candy. We can use this opportunity make the most of these memories because memories are made when our lives feel a little bit like chaos.

Embracing the adventure,

Ashley Chandler

Kansas FFA President