Resolutions And Lessons Learned
We are a week into the new year and I’ve been spending a large amount of my time considering how much I’ve grown and where I still want to go. Up until this point, I’ve had two big goals: graduate college and move on to do something wonderful with my life. Having finally accomplished the first, I’m trying to figure out what exactly I want the “something wonderful” in the second to mean.
For the last couple years, my resolutions have included very specific things about myself I wanted to change. I wanted to put myself first, stop letting fear run my life, and be more mindful. I wanted to become more self aware and more courageous when it came to my own life so that I could figure out what it is that makes me feel full. While I’ve learned a whole lot, I feel as if I’ve barely dipped below the surface. I’m starting to understand what people mean when they say that life is ever-changing.
For the new year, I want to continue this mindfulness journey. I want to learn even more about myself. I want to gain new experiences, but also make more time for the things that I know make me feel full. I want to have more deep conversations, read more, write more, and travel more (and yes, that hopefully means more creative content being posted to my website). I’m at a convenient time in my life, where I have no commitments to anyone or anything, and I plan to take advantage of that.
With all that being said, I also want to write down some of the lessons I've learned. In true ex-Odyssey-Writer fashion, here is a list of some of the things I’ve grown to know about myself and the world around me over the course of my time in college:
No one cares what you’re doing.
Sure, there are family and friends that care about you that want to know what you’re up to, but the rest of the world doesn’t. Everyone is so absorbed in their own path and goals that it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. You don’t have to share every move you make on social media, and you don’t have to carry this constant fear that people are judging you, because they aren’t even paying attention.
Grief is felt in every molecule of your being.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in college, it’s what grief feels like — failed opportunities, loss of friendships, breakups, the loss of old versions of myself, the death of a significant other, the death of a parent. Some days I feel on top of the world, and some days, out of nowhere, I feel immobile. Every day brings a new emotion; anger, guilt, acceptance. Grief is not rational, nor is it linear. Even when you think you’ve felt it all, there’s still more left to feel. You take it as it comes and push forward.
You’re probably better than you give yourself credit for.
The number of times I carried doubt in myself and my abilities is, honestly, endless. I spent an entire semester feeling like a failure in an internship that really wasn’t a great fit for me. I wrote a two page reflection on how terrible and overwhelmed I felt about everything, and how I didn’t feel like I was cut out to work in the publishing industry. Later, when my academic advisor and I unpacked my experience in his office, he assured me that he had never experienced a student with as much drive as I do, and that he believed in me. After that I made more of an effort to polish my work by submitting my pieces to new publications and actively seeking new experiences. I was blown away time after time by the response. There were people out there that I worked well with and loved what I was doing, it was just a matter of gaining a little confidence and finding the right fit.
What you want out of life will change as you continue to grow as a person, so stay open to new experiences.
I used to want to become a commercial photographer, but I visited an art school and decided that it wouldn’t make me happy. In all of my college scholarship applications, I wrote about wanting to become a marketing consultant so that I could help entrepreneurs achieve their own dreams, but eventually I decided that wasn’t what would make me happy either. I added a writing certificate to my degree, and realized that I was actually a pretty decent writer, but I had pursued enough writing opportunities to know that working under a deadline when I wasn’t passionate about what I was doing left me feeling empty too. Each time you put yourself in a new position, you will learn what you do and don’t like about it, and the only real way to learn those things is by trying.
Accutane is a wonder drug that has the power to literally change your life.
If you struggle with acne and you’ve tried everything else and your doctor tries to tell scare you with all of the potential side effects of accutane, don’t listen. Take it anyway. If given the chance for a do-over, I would choose the drug every time — mood swings, sickly skin, unquenchable thirst, pregnancy tests every month and all. If I had known that I’d finish my eight month treatment and feel so much more confident in every aspect of my life, I would have taken it earlier.
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help.
With classes, with mental health, with literally anything you’re struggling with, there is someone out there who can breathe life back into you. I’m not kidding when I say that I contemplated dropping out of college every single day of the semester from hell. Without the encouraging words of my academic advisor, one of my professors I worked closely with, and a TA that was especially patient with me in his office hours every week when I was failing Statistics, I have no doubt in my mind that I would have done just that. But each time I started feeling like I was useless, I dropped by one of their offices and I felt rejuvenated again. When I felt like my mental health was plummeting, and like I was getting hitting a wall in my self-awareness journey, I reached out to a therapist, and it has truly been life changing. There are actually people in the world who are fully equipped to make you better, you just have to be willing to make the first move.
Sometimes love just isn’t enough.
I spent a great deal of the last couple years of college jumping from relationship to relationship that had me feeling like I was settling for a lesser version of myself. I wasn’t happy, and it wasn’t for a lack of love. I know that there are men in this town that loved me with every ounce of themselves and wanted to give me everything, but it was never enough for me. I let myself get caught up in all the commitments and attention of another person, and I set all of my dreams aside. I would pick fights and have exaggerated responses to pretty much everything, and it took me several months each time to realize that I was doing this because I felt like I was being backed into a corner. No matter how it looked on paper, or how badly I wanted to feel like I was in love, I eventually realized that I just wasn’t ready for a relationship.
Put yourself first. Every. Single. Time.
At the end of the day, no person, relationship, or experience is worth losing yourself over. When your mind and body are telling you something doesn’t fit, listen. You know better than anyone else what you need. Stop talking yourself out of things that are right for you because you’re scared or you think it sounds like something that should work. No one else in the world is as passionate about you accomplishing your dreams as you are, so what everyone else wants from you will never get you where you want to go. If you put yourself first, you’ll get exactly what you need.