Isn't college the time we are all supposed to "find ourselves?" Why is it that I have been in college for 4 years, and I am just starting to really figure myself out? What is delaying this process?
After much deliberation...
I know why it has taken so long! Instead of having more time to evaluate ourselves, we have less time in college. And to evaluate, you need time, a plethora of it. It's not an easy process due to the fact that it takes a lot of mental effort and strength. But during the school year, we cannot possibly muster up the strength, or the motivation, because we get so burnt out thinking about what work we have to do, what is due tomorrow, what is due in one week, two weeks...applying for jobs, being on time for a meeting, a dinner date, scheduling a time...TIME! Here it is again. A word that many of us talk about all the time but don't seem to have much of.
"I don't have time for lunch, gotta study." "I don't have time to relax, I have two papers to write." -->Just about all of us are guilty of making statements like this, at some point in our college experience. It's a defense mechanism from our own mind. If we take an hour to eat lunch, our mind may start to race because it again starts to think about the immense list of tasks we have to eventually complete. Our own mind can be scary! What do we do? We run from it.....
Time is always moving and we don't know how to move with it. But what many of us don't realize is that once we have let time slip away from our grasp, life will slip too. We feel overwhelmed by this lack of time that there is definitely no room for stopping to try to catch up to it. No room to think about where we are, who we are, what we are doing, and what we want to be doing. Very few of my friends have taken or made the time to stop, and they seem to be the healthiest, happiest, and most comfortable with themselves. These friends have inspired me to stop...or at least slow down.
I want to move with time and have it by my side. Instead of losing time, I'm making time--making the time to do what is important for my health, my happiness. Obviously, for each of us, time is wisely used in different ways, but my hope is that we all learn to make time for personal growth. In my case, taking the moments to relax and enter a meditative state has opened a portal that leads me to self-reflection. This process has made me realize a lot about what I like and what I don't like about myself and the environment. I want to work on the things I don't like because I know my personal well-being will improve, but also my relationships, my stress levels, my bodily functioning, and my creativity will improve too. For so many years I have been excited by opening up my friends and learning how they think and feel, but finally I am thrilled to open myself up to truly listen, accept, and modify!
