DR. WALLACE: I'm now a senior in high school, and my passion is basketball. I attend a good-size high school in a major city, but unfortunately for me, our coaching staff is quite inexperienced, and there's only one other player on our team that even comes anywhere near my level of ability.

The rest of the team is made up of really great guys, but most of them are just passing their time playing basketball because the opportunity exists due to the overall lack of talent at our school at this point in time. The entire time I've been here at this high school, our team has been submerged at the bottom of the league standings. This year looks like it'll be more of the same in that regard.

I was hopeful of getting noticed this year and being able to play college basketball somewhere, even at a smaller Division III school, for example. Last year I averaged over 18 points a game, and this year I'm sure I could average around 25 points a game if I shoot the ball more, but it's not my nature to be an intentional ball hog.

What should I do this season to maximize my chances of playing college ball, given the situation I'll be in? — I Play on an Underachieving Team, via email

I PLAY ON AN UNDERACHIEVING TEAM: My advice to you is to be the absolute best team player you can possibly be this season. Think of yourself as an additional coach on the floor once your season starts.

Talk to your teammates, encourage them, give them suggestions and do your best to play as a team on both offense and defense. Yes, you'll get your points whether you average 16, 18 or 24 points per game this year, but that doesn't matter as much as how you play overall in context with the teammates you currently have.

Coaches who scout and recruit players for college teams always seem to be looking for good "floor generals" who, simply by their presence, make all their teammates around them better. Keep this in your mind as the new season approaches. Think about being the best "floor general" you can possibly be, and definitely take your shots when they are there in the flow of the game, but don't try to take the game over by yourself or force anything.

Trust this process, and I think your chances of playing college basketball will increase, especially as your mindset of getting the best out of each single teammate alongside you increases as well.

I FEAR THERE WON'T BE TIME FOR ME TO KEEP MY PROMISE

DR. WALLACE: I made it! I'm finally a college student, and after a whirlwind senior year in high school, all my hard work paid off, and I was able to get into a one of the colleges I had on my list of targets.

I had a really busy summer as well, planning my transition, vacationing with my family, and working to build up some savings as I enter this new chapter of my life. One of the things I had set as a goal for myself previously was to become a better human being. By this, I don't mean necessarily self-improvement, although I am always open to that. I mean being a better citizen of my community and, by extension, the world.

I already have a time crunch in front of me with school, studying, a part-time job and an ongoing relationship, plus a lot of good friends to hopefully spend time with. I had promised myself previously that by the time I reached college, I would donate some of my time to do meaningful volunteer work. Now I'm not sure if that's going to be possible, and I feel if I let this goal slip away, it may be the first domino to fall in the series of compromises I may start accepting as my "new normal" mode.

How can I possibly fulfill this promise I made to myself and still keep up with everything else? I don't see where I can possibly carve the time out of my schedule. — Made a Promise to Myself, via email

MADE A PROMISE TO MYSELF: Let's start by taking a look at the big picture. Every human being gets the same number of hours in any particular week: 168, each and every time you do the math.

It's been said that big changes can be accomplished in one's life by simply making a 1% change in their regular routines. Let's start there, and make it a goal for you to give 1% of your time per week to volunteer work. One percent is 1.68 hours, roughly 100 minutes. This means one hour and 40 minutes.

Your class time is fixed, your study schedule must be sacrosanct, and your work hours are likely regularly structured, as you need to fulfill your schedule as an employee in order to earn the revenue you need to pay your expenses. So don't look to carve out any hours from any of those areas. Instead, focus on your social time. You definitely want to maintain your interpersonal relationship at a high level, and you will also want to spend time with your good friends.

Once you've identified an organization you would like to volunteer at for an hour and 40 minutes a week, see if any of your friends would like to join you there occasionally. You could bring your relationship partner with you one week per month, then a different one of your personal friends for each of the other three weeks per month.

Not all of them may want to return once a month again, although some might. In that case, you could arrange some social time either right before or right after your volunteer time, or both! You could carpool together, have the friend take off for an hour and 40 minutes to do something else, and then pick you up to continue some social time together. Think of this as the "sandwich" get-together. Meeting before and after are the slices of bread, and your volunteer time is the meat in the middle.

If you can start out with an idea like this, or anything else you can creatively come up with, and seek to overlap your volunteer time with some social time, I trust your friends and relationship partner will adjust alongside you so that you can achieve your goal.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Markus Spiske at Unsplash