Mary is my good friend. Like me she is a high school senior, but she is in Shandong Province. Despite being in a different part of China, Mary is under the same pressure as I. Mary has ambitious goals, but her present grades seem not good enough to carry her there. Therefore, she is in agony.

One day online she confided that she would sleep less in the night. She would spend the saved time on study. On a typical work day, she goes to bed around 24 and rises at 5. Her revelation shocked me to the core. I could not imagine how I would manage in class if I did that. I would be in pieces.

I asked Mary, “Don’t you feel sleepy the next day?” She answered, “Of course I do, but I will try to stay awake by eating chocolate and drinking coffee.”

I doubted the effectiveness of Mary’s new way to study more. Will her health suffer? When I expressed my concern, Mary said, “The only reason I couldn’t stick to it would be a lack of determination on my part.”

Mary’s new determination unsettles me, to be honest. In my opinion, nothing outweighs health. Nor does our grand goal or our “inflated” future. Only in sound health can we achieve our goal and reach a promising sustainable morrow.