My four alarms wake me up at six in the morning every day. I claw my way out of bed and catch myself on my dresser before I fall as my eyes adjust. 

I wake up each morning dreading the day ahead of me. 

After a slow morning routine and a rushed breakfast, I walk out to the bus stop to start the horrid day. Every day since I was five, I have attended a bleak building filled with expectations. 

I am expected to show up every day ready to work hard and give it my all when all I want is to go sit at home and curl up on my bed with a good book. I simply don’t have it in me to care about school. I am mentally exhausted. 

Over my long education experience, I have heard three words over and over: do your best. But where can I find the motivation for that?

I find I don’t get stressed over my grades, tests, or homework, for the most part, I just can not find it in me to overly care about school. This is obviously not ideal. I want to care more, and I still find I work decently hard, but compared to the energy I approach other aspects of my life, it’s a small fraction of my time that goes to school. 

I run towards opportunities to see my friends and work my absolute best for basketball practice, so why can’t I approach school the same way?

As I think more, the only aspect I have ever looked forward to at school was a social event or a day where little work was required. 

At the beginning of the year, Mr. George had my class choose a word that would help us improve—I chose motivation. I have struggled with finding motivation for a lot of different things, like working out. 

I have improved, I spend more time studying, and I work out when I don’t have practice. I am thrilled with the growth I have made, but still find I dread going to school or doing almost anything school related. It makes me drowsy just thinking of going to school. 

It is common to hear teenagers in high school say they are tired and claim they got no sleep, yet I achieve almost eight and a half hours of sleep every night, and still, I find I am utterly exhausted as I go through my day. Motivation leaks out of my pores as the day drags on. The routine of school that I usually enjoy zaps the energy out of me, one step in the brick prison, and I am already ready to go home. 

No matter how hard I want to work, there seems to be no fix to my endless routine of overtiring days. I dream for the weekends, but I will work hard and slowly make new habits to study more and care more about school during the week. This is a promise I will make to myself, and I hope that I can soon find the motivation I am in desperate need of. I will plug my pores so the motivation can leak out no more.