Bucknell is so tiny that it’s almost inevitable that you’ll run into a familiar face—be it a classmate, the person you always see on the second floor cubicle section of the library, or even a past hookup. Doubting what your drunken eyes saw, you realize that the boy about to walk past you isn’t as cute as he was when you were making out with him the night before and consequently, you feel compelled to look down at your phone to avoid an awkward encounter on the quad. But don’t. Look up. Smile. Say, “hi.” You made out with the boy last night (and maybe even went home with him), so you can at least have the audacity to acknowledge him. You don’t need alcohol or a sense of “liquid courage” to merely say, “hello.” The boy may very well ignore you, but remember, “It’s always better to be the one who smiled than the one who didn’t smile back.”
Contrast is beautiful, as things define themselves by other things. Without sadness, there is no happiness, and without setbacks, there is no growth. These darker moments in which we are feeling deeply unfulfilled are what force us to start looking for truer answers. Maybe you failed your calc exam, but you learn more through failure than through success. You review your exam, find better ways to study, and ultimately, develop better ways to handle “failure.” Though the grade remains the same, the “experience, no matter how bad it seems, holds within it a blessing of some kind.”
College seems like a place where everyone knows exactly what they are doing. Majors (or lack thereof) push people into arbitrary classifications. Consequently, conversations typically begin by the classic question: “What’s your major?” While many do have an answer to this question, many of us do not. But that’s completely okay. College is a time to explore and to discover new things. Students feel such pressure to declare their majors that they often lose sight of the many opportunities to expand their knowledge by taking classes in subjects outside of their comfort zones. Change your mind and even change your major if you want, but never apologize for your uncertainty. Enjoy the journey, and remember, “not all those who wander are lost.”
College seems like a place where everyone knows exactly what they are doing. Majors (or lack thereof) push people into arbitrary classifications. Consequently, conversations typically begin by the classic question: “What’s your major?” While many do have an answer to this question, many of us do not. But that’s completely okay. College is a time to explore and to discover new things. Students feel such pressure to declare their majors that they often lose sight of the many opportunities to expand their knowledge by taking classes in subjects outside of their comfort zones. Change your mind and even change your major if you want, but never apologize for your uncertainty. Enjoy the journey, and remember, “not all those who wander are lost.”
Clouded by our own perceptions of what is right and wrong, we often lose sight of other perspectives that may, in fact, hold more sincere answers. Our default setting is to assume that we are right. And when the boy you thought you were exclusive with hooks up with another girl, your first thought is to hurt him—to hook up with another guy right in front of him. But from his perspective, it was only a hookup, nowhere near the “exclusive” stage. By taking a step back and “trying to understand their situation instead of hurting them back,” we reach new levels of maturity, marked by deep self-awareness.