Feeling unsatisfied with your life and accomplishments is a tale as old as time. Especially in fast-paced, capitalistic societies, constantly feeling like you need to jump from one thing to the next, and never being allowed the chance to stop and smell the roses is the standard. As a freshman at UC Berkeley, I’ve gathered that this is the culture here. If you aren’t busy 15 hours a day, seven days a week, you’re doing something wrong. The majority of students are in pursuit of their next big accomplishment, which isn’t a negative and is actually quite motivational, but at least for me, I’ve found that it’s created a toxic cycle of never feeling satisfied.
This week, I came across a TikTok that stated, “Maybe you don’t realize how great you’re doing because you keep raising the bar.” This TikTok couldn’t have possibly found me at a better time, as the first month of spring semester has been brutal, between club recruitment and midterms. After a seemingly never ending few weeks of coffee chats, applications, interviews, studying, performatively studying, and midterm exams, I was genuinely at a loss.
I’d developed the habit of equating my happiness and internal satisfaction with my next upcoming achievement, in true Berkeley fashion. Telling myself: I’ll feel better when I get a good grade on my exam, I’ll be happier once I get into that club, I’ll feel more satisfied when I finish my prerequisites and can declare my major officially, or I’ll be better once my schedule is fuller with more extracurriculars. But, to quote the wise words of Lana Del Rey, “Tomorrow never came.” This is not to say that my accomplishments don’t bring me genuine joy, because they really do, but in order for it to not feel like a toxic cycle, achievement can’t be the source of happiness. It has to be a bonus or add-on to an already maintained state. As the TikTok stated, you’ll never be able to see how great you or your life truly is, if you keep raising the bar without ever acknowledging where you started.
A year ago, I would’ve never guessed that I’d be studying at Berkeley. It was my biggest accomplishment and proudest moment, but my bar quickly raised without me even noticing. The bar or standard shifted to getting A’s at Berkeley, to joining clubs at Berkeley, to rushing a sorority at Berkeley, and so on. If I let my happiness or self value be contingent upon my journey towards self-actualization, or reaching my full potential and achieving all of my goals, I’d never truly be happy. It’s been a hard pill for me to swallow, but I realized that I had to learn to be happy with myself at all stages of personal achievement.
Whether I passed that test or not, club or no club, internship or no internship, I had to realize that I wasn’t behind or missing out. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be in this present moment, which I think is an affirmation more college students should prioritize. All we really have is the present moment, everything else is either a memory or in the future, so the non-linear process of failing and achieving should be enjoyed and appreciated, rather than rushed through to reach an end goal.