A few weeks ago, I was driving my friends crazy with my inability to make a decision regarding whether or not I actually wanted to study abroad. I had completed the mile-long list of OIP requirements and I had accepted my offer so what was holding me back? During those weeks, I would have given you a list of meaningless reasons why I should stay here in Boston rather then fly 3,000 plus miles to London, but now that I have taken time to process my decision, I can tell you what it really was: fear. I was afraid to leave the life I had built here at BC and justifiably so. BC is safe and for many of us it has become our home. What did London have to offer me? Well, it offered a huge and vast unknown that was going to force me to learn about myself all while attempting to navigate a foreign city on my own. It was hard to admit I was afraid because who wouldn’t want to go on a six month European adventure? We are all supposed to want to do these things, but many times it is easier to say it/think it than it is to actually do it. I would have days where I considered going abroad for the adventure and then I had days where I was positive I was going to remain in the BC bubble forever. I had far more of the latter. I couldn’t make a decision and while I pleaded with family and friends to make it for me, I knew it was mine alone to make.
That’s when the world started to sway me in a direction I never thought I would choose. I was watching Revenge (okay laugh all you want, but it’s a great show and it might have changed my life in a way I never expected a TV show could ever do) and barely paying attention while doing homework when all of a sudden I heard the following quote, “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not why ships were built.” I paused the show and immediately rewinded it to hear the quote again. I wrote it down thinking it would be a cool quote to add to my wall, but didn’t really give it much thought after that, until it started appearing everywhere. First it was in one of my classes, then it was on my Honest Tea cap, and finally I had a friend tell me that it was her favorite quote. It was haunting me and I couldn’t seem to escape its message. Was I making the right choice in staying here at BC or was I just choosing what was safe?
With the help of my best friend, I sat down and finally made a pro/con list for studying abroad and it was then that I realized that fear was the only thing holding me back from experiencing all that study abroad would offer me. What I came to realize was that we can choose to do what is safe and remain in our own personal harbors whether it is BC or somewhere else OR we can choose to leave the harbor to see what the world has to offer us. It maybe scary, exciting, lonely, eye-opening, or a combination of all of the above, but you will never know what it will be like if you remain in the harbor for the rest of your life. The world wasn’t made with only one harbor for a reason; it’s so we can venture outside of our own to see what else the world has to offer. So sail away and see the world, I promise you wont regret it.
Photo Sources:
http://blog.smallerearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Ashipissafeintheharbor-e1339682197565.jpg