Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

— 1 Peter 5:7

It’s finals week at my school and the struggle is REAL. I am quickly approaching the end of my first semester in law school and boy, has it been a ride. Currently, I am struggling to find the motivation to study for my finals. Perhaps it is because I am a bit of a procrastinator and it’s hard for me to feel motivated to study more than two days before a test. On the other hand, it might be the depression and anxiety I am currently dealing with that is contributing to my lack of motivation.

Today my plan was to wake up at about 8 o’clock, head straight to school, study for a few hours before working for a few hours, then head back to school to study for a few more hours before meeting with a friend for a fun study break and wind down. Unfortunately, my day did not go according to plan. I woke up and felt exhausted, continued to sleep until 11, left to go to work at about 12:30, worked from 12:30 to 5, came to school, and procrastinated for two hours before creating this blog in another attempt at procrastination.

I struggle a lot with procrastination and motivation and truly always have when it comes to school work. I love learning, I love debating and discussing, I love challenging and stretching my mind, I love the law, and I even love law school. But despite this, now that it is time for finals, I cannot seem to motivate myself.

Law school is freaking competitive. It’s hard. Everyone is competing against each other because we are graded on a curve. By nature, most law students are type-A, like to argue, are anxious, and think they are always right (I’m including myself in this, by the way). Because of this, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that my grades define me. It’s easy to think that I can skip church just this once to study for a test or prepare a presentation. It’s so easy to think that if I am not in the top ten percent of my class then I will end up unemployed. But then I remember. Law school doesn’t define me; Christ does.

So while preparing for exams is important and doing well in school is important, it all comes back to Christ. My motivation to do well in school is so that others might see that my motivation comes from Christ. My motivation comes from the belief that Christ has given me a sense of justice and mercy that he wants me to display to the world in my (future) work as a lawyer. On the days when it is hard for me to get out of bed and study, when it’s hard for me to feel like my performance on exams matters, I turn to Christ. I can’t skip church to study, because if I cannot study the eternal living word of Christ and cannot feed myself spiritually, then I certainly can’t feed myself academically. I have to remember that Christ is my motivation for doing well, He is my motivation for pursuing law, and the is the reason that I do everything I do.

Finals don’t define me; Christ does.