College senior lacks motivation to finish strong
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DEAR HARRIETTE: I’m about to enter my final semester of college, and I’m excited to be done with school for good. Last semester was long and arduous. I’m so tired that I have almost no motivation to finish out the year strong. I cannot bring myself to commit to my work or any of my final projects. How do I stay motivated? — Senioritis
DEAR SENIORITIS: Think about it this way: Are you ready to graduate? If you want to avoid repeating classes when you reach the end of this semester, you need to hunker down and do the work whether you like it or not. Yes, that’s easy for me to say, but hear me out: This feeling will come and go in life. After you are out in the working world, you will find yourself in situations where you are simply tired. You won’t want to complete a task or push hard to the end of a project. If you are to be successful in your work, you will have to do it anyway. What you are experiencing now is a precursor to what will happen down the line.
As much as you don’t want to do the work, JUST DO IT. To motivate yourself, create a calendar with all of your key deadlines on it. Write in bold and color code those that seem particularly difficult to complete. Make it clear to yourself that you have to get them done. Even better — do them first. Create a personal best challenge for yourself. Set up a competition. When you complete a task, what can be your reward? Have fun with it. This may motivate you.
DEAR HARRIETTE: I was at a bar the other night, and I saw my co-worker’s husband being very handsy with another woman. He was there with a large group of men and only a few women, but he was being super inappropriate with one of the women in his group. My co-worker and I aren’t very close, and I don’t want to cause issues between her and myself, so I would prefer to write an anonymous note. I also have no idea where she stands with her husband or whether they’re separated. If I were her, I would want to know. Should I write the anonymous note? — Anonymous Co-Worker
DEAR ANONYMOUS CO-WORKER: I have learned the hard way that in situations like this, it is best to keep your mouth shut. You do not know your co-worker’s relationship with her husband. Do not assume anything. Yes, you saw something that looked inappropriate. What would have been better would have been to go up and say hello to him so that he knew that you saw him. Going back to your co-worker anonymously will likely make her paranoid, as she won’t know who witnessed the event. If you went to her directly, it would still be hard. Even when people say they want to know about their partner’s indiscretions, it’s rarely true.
Sit this one out. If you see this man again and he is up to these same behaviors, make yourself known to him. If he has a guilty conscience, he will likely react in some way. Hopefully that will lead to your co-worker learning the truth.
