Lily Simmons: No pain, no gain

“You’re not going to get very far in life if you quit everything,” my father told me when I quit soccer, tennis, ice-skating, National Charity League and swimming in the span of 6 months. Oh, and golf.  

Whatever, dad. *Eye roll.*

When I’m not immediately good at something, my first instinct has always been to quit. I’d rather not partake in something at all than embarrass myself trying to learn it. But when I told my counselor how miserable I was within the first two weeks of Harbinger, she told me I’d have to stick it out until the end of the semester before dropping it. 

When I joined the staff the first semester of this year, I was a senior learning next to freshmen. All of my senior friends knew exactly what they were doing, but I — a first-year — did not. 

So I forced myself to cry through Francesca edits and consume hours of YouTube InDesign tutorials. 

But hey, no pain no gain, right? 

Turns out, practice really does make perfect. My designs improved astronomically thanks to the extra InDesign usage I got when my entire page was lost on deadline (This happened twice. Don’t forget to save your work, kids). Texts from copy editors that used to be “You need a Tate edit” shifted to “So good! I loved your story!” 

I found some weaknesses — features, news, sports and stories of that nature. But I also discovered my strengths — opinions, art and design. Contradicting Tate’s famous advice of “Make yourself marketable,” I stuck to my strengths. 

Harbinger didn’t just teach me graphic design and grammar. It taught me how to write an entire story on my phone as I was on vacation because my computer was blocking everything (Thanks SMSD, and thank you Lyda for posting that story for me — I owe you). It taught me how to survive a finals week deadline, all while having the flu. It taught me how to handle Tate’s critique of my news briefs — it was absolutely brutal, by the way. 

Harbinger taught me grit — to stick with something even though it’s frustrating and makes you want to throw your MacBook across Maggie Kissick’s basement at writer’s deadline. 

Although I’m just a measly first-year, you should take it from me — stick with it. Harbinger totally sucks, but has been the most rewarding thing I could have done. My only regret is that I didn’t start my freshman year. 

#yas