I am exhausted. Between going to class, studying and juggling my many extracurriculars, there is little room to breathe—much less embark on a journey of introspection. Everyone says that college is the time to figure out who you are and what you want to do, and explore different avenues to achieve it. Young adulthood is the period of life with the highest concentration of change, filled with milestones and uncertainty. Personally, as someone who feels sucker punched when thinking of making plans further than a month in advance, this change and uncertainty stress me the hell out. There’s this pressure to have everything figured out. The sooner I pick a major the sooner I can get an internship in that field, which will give me a leg up for my career. It’s exhausting feeling like I have to rush through life to get to the next step when college is supposed to be a time to try new things and not worry too much about life before it really gets real.
Change is inevitable.
Of course, I am going to be faced with tough decisions and stress, that’s what being a college student is. But these decisions are the first ones I’m making on my own for myself, which make them that more terrifying. If they blow up in my face I have no one to blame but myself. According to an article from TIME magazine, young adults are the most stressed group of people in America. A lack of life experience and healthy coping mechanisms can make challenges even more stressful to combat.
Most college students feel like they’re caught in a battle between wanting to wake up with their lives figured out and wanting to relish this period of life. America’s obsession with the 9-5 rat race perpetuates an unhealthy image of having everything together, and social media’s game of comparisons can cause every little mistake to feel like the end of the world. Am I studying too much? Am I not going out enough and missing out on key college memories? The comparison game is exhausting. Sometimes I wish someone else could make decisions for me, just to take some of the pressure off.
All this pressure can make it hard to figure out who I am, and if I’m making choices because I want to or because that’s what my friends are doing. Yet, from each decision I make I find out a little bit more about myself in the process. These four years are flying by, and I just want to enjoy them as much as I can.