thanks flickr
Sometimes people believe they know who they are, but I think that’s impossible. To truly understand one’s self, said person has to be all-knowing. Sorry to burst your bubble, but no human being is all-knowing. The most I can do is accept what I know (and don’t know), as of right now, and get ready for whatever changes are being kept for me in my future. Because the fact is that I know very little. I know I’m a person of many opposites. I know that the quote from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself “I am large. I contain many multitudes” resonates with me. I know I’m a college student and I know that I want to be, in four years, a college graduate.
I don’t know, however, how the hell I’m going to get there. I have endless concerns about college; most of which I’m not even aware of. I predict that I’m going to have trouble with balancing my life between the social and the academic. There have been and probably will be eras of my life divided by very distinct phases. I’ll go through a whole month doing nothing but work; only to be followed by a whole month of partying. Then, in addition to the crookedness of my life, I have the problem of not enough “me time”. Me time is very important. With the right amount of me time comes a very natural ability to reduce stress, which is something I have a great deal of difficulty doing. I’m very afraid that I will do what I did in high school and freak out when stress comes my way. You know the theory fight or flight? I define flight. I am what it means to run away from a problem.
Then I remind myself — this isn’t high school. There are a few seemingly obvious, but very notable differences between now and then. I’m no longer a high schooler. My peers are no longer high schoolers. And my professors are no longer high school teachers. What does that mean? One: I’m more mature and, hopefully, so are the people around me. And two: my professors expect more of me and understand that since more is expected of me, for the first time since a long time, I am under a great deal of stress. And thus, the atmosphere has changed.
I figure that, with the above calculation, my freshman year should definitely be a switch. I foresee a bunch of little things happening. Things like: more friends on facebook, a significant decrease in sleeping hours, better pong skills, and so forth. But, on the grander scale, my worldview is bound to change is a drastic and wonderful way. With my own evolution and with the influence of my also-evolving peers, I will grow exponentially. Another huge change is going to be moving out of my house. If all goes accordingly, it should change me in a positive way. I should blossom. Maybe I’ll learn how to balance my life. Maybe I’ll pick up some stress reducing skills. One can only hope.
Dominique Bible