Back to School... there are still lessons to be learned

A family friend of ours headed back to college a week or so ago along with thousands of other kids. She told me over the summer that she was headed into a Chemistry class that she wasn't too keen on. My jaw DROPPED!!! Who doesn't love Chemistry? So with my mouth already hanging open I blurted out "I wanna take Chemistry WITH you!" Dummy move (aka Overcommited Mom Move).

Okay, so I am technically off the hook. I didn't register for the class but in all my excitement I geared up for homework, take home quizzes and NOT having to do lab (I still have nightmares about labs). I went online to purchase my book and SCREEEEEECH! What the heck! Were books $350 when I was in school? And it's a binder ... not even a book. I am a grown ass woman and I can't afford a textbook. NO matter, I will let the 19 year old buy the book and mooch off of her.

Okay, so we are all set and I patiently wait for her first day of class. To my (not her) disappointment, we didn't get homework on the first day. But day 2 we get our first worksheet. I eagerly print it out and bring it home from work. That night I read the first 2 pages of Chapter one and fell asleep. I decide I am much to tired at night to retain anything useful and resolve that I will be spending my lunch hour doing homework.

The next day, I finish the chapter and begin my worksheet. As I moved along I answered the multiple choice questions with little trouble. Problem 1 and 2 were cake, 3 proved a little more difficult so I had to go back to my reading but I only had 4 choices and one always seemed to fit. Later that evening, we did a comparison of homework and we had different results for 4 of the 12 questions. I did a little secret cheer to myself thinking I was really going to be helpful for my friend as she navigated through her first college Chemistry class.

As we went through these 4 problems, over and over she proved me wrong. Each time my moral sinking as I saw what silly mistakes I had made either caused by my overconfidence or maybe a new characteristic I seem to have picked up in my adulthood, a lack of patience. I simply wasn't reading the questions. I don't remember being like that in school. I could sit and patiently work through a problem and come to a, usually correct, result.

It trickles into my work and my daily life. Do you feel this too? Aren't we constantly jumping from one thing to another not taking too much time with any one thing. I believe we could be missing a lot. Maybe it's time to start focusing on one thing at a time. Luckily, my homework mistakes didn't cost anyone anything but not taking the time to listen and learn could definitely cost me in life. This is applicable to so many faucets of our lives. Knowing this may or may not help me moving forward but this was definitely a wake up call. I don't know if I can really slow down as life doesn't tend to let us but maybe I can FOCUS.