Dressed in dark grey leggings, a navy blue sweatshirt and black flip-flops, Sahana Narayan (12) leans against the wall with her legs stretched out in front of her. Every so often, Sahana switches between casually munching on her carrots to engaging in a competitive thumb war with herself.

While Sahana’s demeanor is often mistaken as lazy, her friend’s are able to identify and appreciate her relaxed nature.

“I think one of the things I admire most about Sahana that I grow to appreciate even more every school day is that she genuinely works hard,” Sahana’s friend Andrea Simonian (12) said. “When she puts her mind to it she gets it done because she has that work ethic inside of her.”

Despite Sahana’s work ethic in school, she has come to realize how insignificant the extensive amount of time she has spent studying will be in the long run.

“When I was thinking about what I would remember from senior year, I realized I wasn’t going to remember a score on a test or a project, but I was going to remember my friends and the time I spent with them,” Sahana said. “I realized that I was spending so much time over studying for tests that I knew I was ready for.”

Throughout the past couple years, Sahana explained that the reason she studied so much was because she did not have the best studying habits.

Instead of staying focused on the task at hand, Sahana noticed herself getting distracted by her phone and responding to her friends on a variety of social media accounts. Like many high school students, it took a while for Sahana to admit that her lack of focus was preventing her from utilizing her time as productively as possible. But through self reflection and conscious changes Sahana has been able to turn them around to allow herself a more flexible schedule that has brought about a better state of mind.

“I had time to spend time with just myself,” Sahana said. “Even with taking more time to myself, I was doing just fine in school. I think that’s another thing that I learned how to do junior year, I learned how to spend time by myself and learned how to be alone. I’m not saying I’m an introvert, I still like to go out and do things, I just learned how to spend time with myself.”

In addition to learning to spend time alone, Sahana has also learned the importance of living in the present moment. She learned this lesson through the consistent drives she takes through the Saratoga Mountains.

“I think for some reason, it’s just really nice to be in a car by yourself,” Sahana said. “It’s just really relaxing to be alone and blasting the music because in that moment all I am thinking about is driving my car. There isn’t really anything else I think about so it really gives me the opportunity to be on the moment. You’re so focused on driving that everything else kind of just falls away and it forces you to be internally in the present.”