It’s time to decompress

Isabella Gaspar’raj | The Chronicle

The Tombow Fudenosuke calligraphy pen was the gateway to finding my calmer self.

About two years ago, I got my first calligraphy book and calligraphy pen. Though I like to show others my calligraphy work and I am proud of it, the root of it is that I love writing beautifully, and it calms me down. Calligraphy helpsed me tune out the world around me and take my mind off of my worries to only focus on the slow, curved, writing of the alphabet. Calligraphy helped me make my head a blank slate, free of things I should be worried about.

We often get caught up in the huge workload of our classes as well as extracurriculars that take up lots of our time, and this takes away any free time for simply relaxing and giving our brains rest. In fact, we are encouraged to fill up our schedules so that colleges will choose us over any others. We’re pushed to our breaking points with honors and AP classes, having to use every free minute, even during the school day, to finish our homework in hopes of maybe getting 7 hours of sleep.

I encourage anyone and everyone to find their own so-called “boring” task. It can be calligraphy or writing practices like me, or maybe coloring, folding laundry, reading, anything. Having an activity like this that doesn’t become your main passion is important because when a talent of yours becomes serious, it can cross over into the realm of a stressor.

I know many of us are continually bogged down by their next upcoming test, waiting on edge for their grades to flux, and wondering how to fit in their pages of homework into minutes they don’t have in their day. Even so, I think picking up a new practice and making time for it can cause you to recognize that you have the power to slow down. My “boring” practice has helped me grow by de-stressing, and I hope yours does that for you, too.