{"id":752,"date":"2017-10-24T15:06:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T15:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=752"},"modified":"2018-07-24T16:34:55","modified_gmt":"2018-07-24T16:34:55","slug":"editorial-the-bright-side-of-an-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2017\/10\/24\/editorial-the-bright-side-of-an-accident\/","title":{"rendered":"Editorial: The Bright Side of an Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Megan Pan<\/strong><\/h4>\n

One morning last week, I was driving myself to school when I got into an accident.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t anything terrible. I was a little careless on the turn into the school driveway, and my car ended up scraping against the curbside stones. Aside from a harsh clang and the physical jolt of the ricochet, it wasn\u2019t too serious, and once I parked and headed inside I thought nothing more of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Flash forward to 5:30 that afternoon: tired from classes and play practice and dreading the work that awaited me that evening, I was more than ready to enjoy the drive home, listening to music while coasting thoughtlessly down the highway. However, as soon as I accelerated onto I-78 eastbound, I noticed that there was a loud, rhythmic thumping noise coming from the back of my car. Panicking, I made the first exit I could and trudged along until reaching the nearest gas station.<\/span><\/p>\n

As it turned out, I had actually blown a tire from my accident that morning. Somehow, I had failed to notice it after parking and even upon returning to my car in the afternoon. Luckily, a trucker filling up at the gas station was kind enough to lend a hand. He replaced the flat tire with the spare in the trunk, walking me through the procedure so I would know what to do in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThank you so much,\u201d I said to him after he was done. \u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for you, I probably would\u2019ve kept driving on the blown tire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou wouldn\u2019t have wanted to do that,\u201d he replied. \u201cYou could end up really causing damage to the axle or the hub or something if you keep driving on a flat tire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Having been told not to drive over 50 miles per hour on a donut, I scouted a new route home that wouldn\u2019t take me along any freeways. On local roads, it would take about 40 minutes in order to get home. Seeing as I had little other choice, I sighed and buckled myself in for the long ride. <\/span><\/p>\n

As it turned out, I actually quite enjoyed this little detour. Following this route, the landscapes were much prettier and more varied than the industrial gray and the conventional green of the roads and signs along the highway. Ambling along winding roads and steep hills, humming along to my favorite songs while admiring the view of the setting sun, I was able to experience a rare 40 minutes of tranquility in the car all by myself. I didn\u2019t think about the work that I needed to do or the upcoming deadlines for all my assignments or even the editorial I had been procrastinating for the newspaper. I just drove and drove and made my way back home.<\/span><\/p>\n

You might be wondering why I\u2019m telling you this, all of which seems to add up to simply an anecdote of a minor inconvenience in an otherwise ordinary day. But by the time I pulled into the garage that evening, I had realized something important.<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the beginning of the school year, I have been working myself to the point of exhaustion in the attempt to do <\/span>everything<\/span><\/i>. Juggling a full course load, college applications, extra-curriculars, and family obligations, I have skipped meals, shed tears, and sacrificed sleep to try to get everything done. In terms of my physical and mental well-being, I had definitely blown a tire. In spite of that, I was still struggling to keep going on a flat tire, resulting only in ineffectiveness and further disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Within the Pingry community, there is a sense of urgency pervading the atmosphere that makes many people feel as if they\u2019re running a race in which they can\u2019t afford to stop or slow down. There is a constant deluge of things to do, and with the added pressure of seeing everyone else around you working hard, you push yourself past your limit to be able to keep up.<\/span><\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t keep driving on a flat tire. It\u2019s simply not practical, and you run the risk of causing further damage to yourself, whether you sputter out from excessive fatigue or explode in a burst of stress and frustration. What students must come to understand is that when they find that they\u2019ve reached a point at which trying to keep going would only prove counterproductive, it\u2019s necessary and perfectly fine to take a moment to breathe. When times get rough, take the time to perform repairs, fill up on gas, and pick up a couple of snacks from the convenience store. Then, you\u2019ll be ready to hit the road again.<\/span><\/p>\n

People often use the metaphor that life is a marathon in the sense that it\u2019s a long-distance race and you have to pace yourself. However, I\u2019d like to provide a modification of that metaphor. To me, life is not a quest to complete a set distance along a set course while competing to achieve the fastest time; in fact, it\u2019s not a race at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, life is a long car drive. All of us are driving at different speeds and in different directions, and we\u2019re each going someplace different. But no matter where we\u2019re headed in the long run, it\u2019s important to take the time every once in a while to exit the highway, slow down, and truly enjoy the scenery.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Megan Pan One morning last week, I was driving myself to school when I got into an accident. It wasn\u2019t anything terrible. I was a little careless on the turn into the school driveway, and my car ended up scraping against the curbside stones. Aside from a harsh clang and the physical jolt of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[14,13],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-editorial","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":753,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}