For those students among us that are also involved in after-school athletics, the thought of how much time you would have if you just quit your team is extremely tempting. And for those who don’t participate in sports, our lives really aren’t as packed as we make it to be.

A few weeks ago, a question came to my mind that piqued my interest: how much free time do NARPs (Non-Athletic Regular People) have compared to student athletes? I personally participate in three sports year-round, as do many other students, and I always feel like I never have time to just veg out after school or on the weekends. After checking my Snapchat feed one day after swim practice, and it seemed like the NARPs had so much time to do whatever they wanted after school. That time is when I decided to find out truly how different an athlete’s and a non-athletes schedule is.

I asked a fellow sophomore student, Zachary Arzano, to help me with completing my study. Since we have a similar school workload and are in the same grade, I figured he would be the best subject to compare to. For an entire week, we both kept a schedule from the time we woke up, to the time we fell asleep. Afterwards, I compared our schedules, and came to a *surprising* conclusion: we live completely different lives, but NARPs have just as packed of a schedule as athletes do.

You would think that the similarities would stop after waking up, going to school, and falling asleep, but that just isn’t the case. After school, Zach would go home on the bus, as I would turn the other way to walk to the sport lockers. Just like every day, I would go to swim or tennis practice, but Zach would go to work at Oliver’s from 3 to 8, every other day. Honestly, on his work days, Zach had less time than I did to do homework or chill out, with only a few exceptions. Though he had days off, the extra time he lost because of work evened out with the time that I spent at practice, and we had about the same amount of free time.

This is a PSA to all student athletes: Please, stop complaining about not having any time. I know that it seems like it’s a never-ending cycle of school, sports, and sleep, but our NARP counterparts go on the daily grind just as often as we do.