The Reality of what college has taught me.
First two years.
I think that we all envision college as the break through point in our life when we become who we were meant to be. I know that two years ago when i graduated high school and i was getting ready to move away i had all of these expectations to “find myself” in the upcoming years.
What i have learned more than anything though, is that the search to “find ourselves” isn’t exactly, a search. I came home this summer for my summer break and have been going through my garage and keepsakes and one thing that keeps coming to my mind is how i felt the last time i looked at those things, like i wanted to pack them away and keep growing up, keep looking for who i was supposed to become.
I’ve spent the past two years searching for this defining moment and time when i realize who i am. Who God wants me to be and what everything i have been through thus far in life, has been leading up. The truth is though, finding these children’s books and my old collections, looking at old toys that i used to play with every single day and remembering that these are all a part of me has made me realize some important things.
Individually even if you tried 100% to be someone else, fantasized, day dreamed about someone else’s life it wouldn’t be real. Real is beautiful, real is life. I’ve learned that there are so many amazing people, amazing things in life, that form you into who you are supposed to be that searching for yourself is pointless.
The one single most important lesson that i have learned so far in life, is that the only place to “find yourself” is to take a look in the mirror.
Take a look in the mirror and don’t just see the exterior, accept the person in the reflection, accept every circumstance you have been through, accept every single bit of knowledge that you have learned, think about every single person that you have met so far and how they have impacted your life. That, is how you find yourself.
I remember going through recruitment for sorority rush my freshman year of college and being so incredibly nervous. I’m pretty sure i even told the same exact story about myself back to back to two different girls because i was so scared that they weren’t going to like me. I remember not really feeling “at home” as all of my pi chi’s had told me i would at any houses and just going through the houses and waiting for recruitment to be over with. Even when the top houses kept asking me back and i got a bid from one of the top houses on campus, i still felt awkward and nervous. I was so scared that i wasn’t going to find anyone who was “like me.” Like my best friends in high school had been, people i could just be myself around. Luckily i found them pretty fast. My best friend in college has taught me so much.
When they say that God gives you the people that you need most in life, they are not lying.
I honestly don’t even know how i ended up selecting the house that i am in. Recruitment week is all kind of a blur in my head, Once again i was waiting for this defining moment when i would just KNOW. But i didn’t have it, yet somehow i still ended up being at the absolute perfect place for me. Being surrounded with the perfect people who have helped me mature and become who i am today.
I have no doubt that God is real and he is looking out for my best interest. He knows what is best for me and he constantly shows me. He has given me the biggest support system i could ever ask for in my mom and my sister. He has also blessed me with so many other amazing people who have influenced my life that my heart physically misses them when i am away from them. My friends are amazing, both my high school friends and my college friends.
Which leads me to the second most important lesson that i have learned, and that is that when you look in the mirror and think of the people of who have impacted your life and made you who you are, spend a really long time on those people. Think really hard and be honestly and sincerely grateful for them. I have friends who have seen me at my absolute worst and at the same time seen me THROUGH my absolute worst.
I have people in my life who have impacted my life how some would say “badly” but to me anything that they did that could have hurt me, just made me who i am.
Which goes into the third most important lesson that i have learned, and that is, to accept my scars. Part of “finding yourself” is accepting yourself, and that means the bad too. You should never hate anything about yourself just want to better. The desire for improvement is part of human nature, and i don’t think that is a bad thing. As long as you are okay with accepting the scars of the ‘bad’. Being okay with the people who have hurt you, who have broken your heart in ways that you never thought your heart could break. Learning to acknowledge it and using it to make you stronger is one of the most important parts of growing up.
I have spent the first two years of my college life confused. Searching for something that was right here the whole time. I’ve heard the quote “you can be anything you want to be, as long as you just believe”
Well i would like to rephrase that quote and say “you can be anything you want to be, as long as you just believe in yourself”.
Know yourself, trust yourself, understand yourself, accept yourself, love yourself, and love God and trust him and know that he has your best interest in his hands.
1 Timothy 4:12
Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity.
- May 21 2012 | - Read More →
