A year ago, I started a project, sort of by accident. FWPMUN––as the Saturday Model UN conference we hold here is called––combined a lot of things I love doing into one project: Model UN, organizing, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off. So, I thought, why not throw my hat in the ring to lead it?

I was surprised and honored to be appointed to the position for which I applied. A two-hour-long phone conversation with Sammy Kagan that same afternoon kicked off the largest project I’ve ever undertaken in my life.

I quickly realized that there were parts I hated. Standing at Mr. Bigelow’s podium every Tuesday and talking to (at) a group of 30 people quickly became a source of dread for me. And by the fifth keynote speaker I contacted, I was more than tired of asking people I pretty much knew would say they were busy and couldn’t make it.

I barely remember anything that happened in the world in December or January, I was so consumed by FWPMUN. And if you had the bad fortune of spending a significant amount of time with me in the two weeks leading up to the conference, I’m sorry. I probably snapped at you out of nerves. I promise it wasn’t something you said.

But February 2 was one of the best days of my life. From 7:00 a.m. when I arrived at Parker until I crashed around midnight that night, I couldn’t contain my smile nor the pride I felt in my team. Although I enjoyed myself throughout the entire yearlong planning process, the culmination of 300+ hours of work left me with a happiness I’d never felt before.

It is true that we are forced to go to school each day (“each” is a stretch––we are talking about Parker, after all) and take four years of English, three years of history, three years of math, and so on. But the unscheduled part of our days––between returning from school and going to bed, plus all–day on the weekends––is, quite possibly, the most valuable time for us to take on projects that suit our interests, like FWPMUN.

But by no means do those projects need to be massive, year-long undertakings. They can be as small or as large as one decides. For example, I work out every day after school, pretty much without fail, because taking the incremental half-hour out of my homework makes me feel happier and less stressed. I don’t sweat taking a break from studying on Sunday afternoons to meal-prep for the week because I love to cook. If it feels like I’ve been working forever without getting anything substantial done, I give myself a short break.

I have found that making time for these things––from taking a BuzzFeed quiz to planning a Model UN conference––make the things I have to do feel less like a never-ending series of chores and more like intermittent tasks: pauses between what I want to spend my time doing. It’s less of a reward system and more an attempt to interpolate them into my routine.

As cliché as it sounds, life is too short to spend (all of) it doing things we are asked to do, rather than things in which we find joy. Even while we’re forced to spend eight hours a day in school, making or finding time to explore things we like––whether it’s five minutes or two hours a day––gives us something to look forward to and makes the high school years overall more enjoyable.