School can be a hard, stressful, and toxic environment. Sometimes, students can experience stress from schoolwork, anxiety from an unsure future, pressure from needing to have good academics, and even depression, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be at peace in such a place.  

I’ve had my fair share of these negative things, and at times, I thought I would never get through high school, but today in this article, I want to share my introspective perspective on two ways I can find peace in school. 

Control what you can and can’t  

Now this is an obvious one, but people tend to forget it sometimes. In school, you can control some things, such as your grades, actions, attitude, etc., but what about the things you can’t control? For example, the actions of other students, such as how they react or respond to you, or how a teacher’s attitude is in class, and how many quizzes or assignments they give. Well, what I’ve done is that I’ve accepted that’s how school will be, and instead of trying to control or alter what I can’t control, I just accept it.

You have to adapt and be flexible to any situation that happens at school and be open-minded about what happens, just like the great Hong Kong-American martial artist and actor Bruce Lee once said, “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” This quote has helped me a lot and reminds me to go with the flow and that we can keep going forward in any situation. Besides, acceptance, flexibility, and adaptation are steps to finding peace. 

Listening to Music 

Music is a very good way to relax and helps me a lot throughout my school day. It is said that listening to music can help reduce stress, improve mood, and aid in mindfulness. All of which are very true. If I’m having a bad day, whether because of a bad class, I failed a test, or because I’m not in the mood to be at school, I listen to my favorite music so I can keep going throughout my day. There is a music artist whom I listen to during school every day, which I want to share with you, and that music artist is called ‘Nujabes’. I really enjoy his music, and all the songs I’ve heard from him, I’ve never had one that I’ve hated. I’d recommend listening to his album “Luv(sic) Hexalogy”, in my opinion, most of his best songs are in that album, so I’d check it out! Music is one of the ways I find peace at school, and of course, you are free to listen to any music that makes you feel happy and comfortable. It could be from peaceful music like jazz or to the loudest music like heavy metal, the beat and the melody are the recipe for finding peace.  

Conclusion 

There are many other ways to find peace at school, but these two are what helped me throughout my freshman year to my junior year. I hope other people can find peace at school because it’s better to be at peace with yourself and go with the flow of life rather than crashing into yourself and having a negative perspective at school. Remember, high school is a one-time thing in life, so enjoy it as much as you can.