Earlier this week, my roommate and I were complaining about how busy and stressful the two weeks before winter break were going to be. We were having quite a pity party, carrying on about how penniless, tired, and ready to go home we were.
I sounded lazy and ungrateful, and I knew it.
So, I turned to her and said, “Yes, this sucks, but aren’t we so blessed to be stressed?” It was incredibly corny, and we laughed about it. But as cringey as it is, it was a true statement.
It is easy to whine about how hard the end of the semester is with the cold weather, early sunrises, endless assignments, and finals quickly approaching. But complaints are futile. It is more valuable to adjust our perspectives and be grateful to be where we are.
We get to experience the changing of the seasons. We get to wear cozy winter coats. We get to experience the relief of the warm air on our skin when we enter a building after walking to class.
We get to have an education (which is even more special for us women). We get to learn EVERY DAY. We get to gain inspiration from brilliant professors and advisors. We get to experience the stress of finals alongside our peers. We get to challenge ourselves and see what we are capable of.
We have access to so many places and are presented with more opportunities than we know what to do with. We get to push ourselves academically, physically, mentally, and socially.
We get to meet people from all over the world. We get to learn what it means to network and how to carry ourselves through awkward first encounters.
We have put ourselves in a position to potentially have everything we want in life. We have the opportunities; right here, right now.
We are in the right place at the right time, and losing perspective over a couple of difficult weeks is a waste of our energy. We have to look at the big picture.
It may be cliché to say, but we will never be this young again. We will never have these same opportunities again. I do not want to make myself feel older than I am by spending my time complaining about a life I should be busy living.
So, yes, I am stressed out. I have an insane number of statistics assignments to do, an unsettling number of articles to edit, flyers to make for my internship, dozens of photos to take for class, and four finals to study for. But I am so blessed to be able to do these things and to do a damn good job with them.