When I moved into my dorm at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as a freshman, my grandma gifted me a framed print of stacked rocks on the beach. She told me that these rocks represented balance. Over the next few years, when I would call her and update her on all that I was doing at school, she would remind me to look at the rocks and think of their balance. If one rock is out of sync, they all fall out of place. In life, the idea of balance is to reach equilibrium of all the demands placed on you. With it, you can avoid spreading yourself too thin and allocate your energy to the right places.
My last semester at UMass Amherst began a few weeks ago. With graduation drawing near, I’ve been reflecting on how I want to make the most of my remaining time here and what worked well for me during the past four years.
In many ways, my grandma’s instinct to instill the idea of balance in my mind was right. As college students, we face immense pressure to rise to expectations: attending classes, performing well on exams, making decisions about our future, all while experiencing some of the most formative years of our lives. Understandably, this pressure can lead to almost unbearable stress. Many of us are no strangers to mid-semester breakdowns. Balance can address this burden by allowing us to destress, take time for ourselves, and prioritize our mental health.
However, as the final months of college approach, I can confidently say that balance was not the key to my experience. My time at UMass Amherst was undoubtedly testing. Taking challenging courses (from Astronomy 101 to English 499), joining on-campus organizations (like Her Campus), spending late nights out with friends, and working a part-time job were difficult to manage. But all of these demands were a good thing. I grew more as a person than I ever have, in some ways, because I was stretched to the limit.
Here’s the thing: balance might actually be unattainable in college because this period of time demands so much from us. The spirit of balance is great, but society’s interpretation of it is not always great. As college students, we are already under so much pressure. The guilt of leading a balanced life, when that goal itself may be unrealistic, is not necessarily helpful. Truthfully, you don’t need to be living a certain way to be healthy and happy.
We should focus on making the most of our experience while prioritizing our happiness and health, rather than pursuing an elusive lifestyle that may not be meant for people our age. In fact, I was talking to a friend the other day about finding balance, and she shared that she felt she wasted some of her college experience trying to find the perfect routine. Sophomore year, she beat herself up in an attempt to prioritize self-care. She would stay in on the weekend, isolate herself, and prioritize going to the gym over hanging out with her friends.
Her advice? If you’re staying home to read a self-help book before bed, you might be trying to fulfill something in your life that could be fulfilled by hanging out with your friends and not caring as much about doing the ‘right’ thing. The pursuit of perfection can be dangerous. You only have so much time in life to spend with your friends, and college is one of them.
If you are taking a full-time course load, working, and still looking to sleep well and maintain a social life, balance may be out of the question. Some weeks, you may not sleep very well. Others, you might fall behind on your schoolwork, forget to do your laundry, or binge-watch your favorite show instead of going to that workout class you said you would go to. The last thing you need in this situation is to berate yourself for a lack of balance.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for creating a balanced life. As long as you are taking care of yourself and prioritizing what matters to you, you’re living your life correctly. I urge you to think about what you want to get out of your time, consider how you want to make an impact, whether it’s with friendships, on-campus organization, or in the local community, and go do it. That is much more important than an unreachable lifestyle, no matter how much your family wants you to be happy and healthy (and thanks to my grandma, for showing me what balance looks like and encouraging me to find what I want for myself).
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