This post kind of goes with my last post about being yourself.
I wanted to talk about how difficult it is for people my age (or any age for that matter) to figure out where they belong in the world and what they’re supposed to do with their lives.
You know, it’s a very terrifying thing to be thrust into the “real world” at the age of 18. People expect you to go to college with the intention of knowing exactly what you want to do with the rest of your life. It’s so incredibly unrealistic. Since I graduated high school in 2013, I have already changed my major (and schools, actually) three times, and I’m still not even 100% sure what I’m doing now is really what I want to do for the rest of my life. I can almost guarantee that I’m not the only person my age that feels this way.
We are under so much pressure to have our lives planned out perfectly from the moment we enter college. We have to take specific classes every semester so that we don’t fall behind, graduate in four years, handle our schoolwork, have a job, pay rent, buy groceries, and somehow make time to have a social life. And this is supposed to be the best time of our life??
College students get so caught up in all of this that they forget what college is actually about— finding yourself.
How are you supposed to know what you want to spend your life doing if you don’t even know exactly who you are? Are you someone that enjoys talking to people? Or being alone? Do you like helping people? Or are you the one that usually needs the help? What do you like doing? What do you hate doing? What are you good at? What are you bad at? These are questions that you have to ask yourself in order to find out who you are.
You have to try new things. Do things that you could never imagine yourself doing. (Except illegal things, of course.) Be with people that bring out your happiness.
Be alone.
You have to get comfortable with being alone so that you can get to know yourself. People are so chameleon-like these days. Their personalities completely change depending on who they’re with and where they are. In a way, it could be good, but it’s also very very bad. How can you stand your ground with anything if you change yourself based on who you are with? It just doesn’t work.
Don’t be afraid to find out who you are. You might be missing out on a truly incredible person.
