Juggling on the Balance Beam

The frustration is unbearable, but it's something that I live with every day. I can't seem to shake it and keep it from simply overcoming me. I can't keep the balance needed to continue juggling classes and homework with practice and a personal life. Oh yeah, throw in needing to get a job, and all of a sudden I don't know which direction I'm going, let alone the direction that I need to be going. At some point it has to end. I don't know if it will be because I finally find the way to manage my time and consequently the rest of my life, or if it will be because something is given up and sacrificed for the good of my sanity. At many times, I contemplate the easy solution: GIVE UP!!! Then I snap back to reality. The only thing that I gain as a result of giving up is failure. I have always tried to avoid failure, so I don't want to just invite it into my head by quitting. Then the question still remains: What is the right solution for me? I enjoy everything in my life right now. It's fun and fulfilling to be able to go to school, sing, hang out with friends, have a few drinks and a lot of laughs. Priorities are the other solution. Having them and setting them down is the key to this whole time management thing that I have no idea about. My struggle is what to consider a priority. Are they the things that need to be done to get a certain grade and simply show on paper what I already know? Are they the things that I count on to make me happy and that I know will last forever if I put the effort in from my side? A few of those things I know of and I still seem to put off or neglect. THE priority is my family; the people who have been there for me all of my life and who, when things really come down to it, will be there for me no matter what. Then there are my friends. I see most of my friends as an extended family. I'd do whatever I had to for them and they in return the same for me. So where does this whole school thing fit in? Well, I know that to do what I want for a career they won't accept anything but a sufficient college degree. I know in my heart that I could step in right now and do it. I have the passion, the knowledge, and the ability. What I don't have and seems more distant every day is my diploma. Since when did a piece of paper supercede someones ability to do the job right? Who started this and made it so popular? Whoever it was, I hope they're dead, so I don't have to waste the time hunting them down. I know everyone benefits from school. I have always believed that. But I can't get over the feeling sometimes that I'm wasting a lot of money and time in the current process of my "education." Maybe I just took the wrong fork in the road. I'm reminded of the text of a Robert Frost poem that was set to music:

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both.
And be one traveller, long I stood,
and looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth"

I can never escape the feeling that I'm turning the wrong direction. Then again, it could be the perfect direction and I'm too lazy or scared or whatever to brave the pathway through when I am mixed up in the jungle instead of looking down the paved road. So, for now, I keep throwing all of my balls up in the air and trying to catch them without losing my balance. For it seems that under this tightrope, there is no net.