So, your first week is almost over, congratulations. However, before you completely check out to enjoy the weekend or start on all the work that will begin to pile up on everyone else (you go-getter, you). I hope you take a little time to sit, think and decide what it is you want out of this school year. Additionally, think about who you hope to be once this year is over.
This initial week is the least intensive week many of us will experience for a very long time, therefore, this weekend is the best chance to prepare and prioritize in anticipation for the long grind toward the end of the semester. I urge you not to waste this chance to make big and positive changes in your life.
Even if it isn’t your first year in college, there is still a sense of infinite possibilities that comes with a new school year. This is the best and easiest time to make changes and reach for those big goals that you’ve always wanted to achieve. I’m sure you have figured all of this out on your own. Then again it’s entirely possible that, like me, you’ve tried hard in the past to improve yourself or your life, and you’ve failed.
You start out well, highly motivated and making real progress, and then October comes, and you get swamped with work, and you lose sight of what you are trying to accomplish. By Thanksgiving you are just praying that you can keep your head above water long enough to make it to the winter holiday. Maybe this isn’t a universal experience, but it’s certainly an accurate picture of my life and the lives of my friends. It’s frustrating how year after year all the big plans fall by the wayside and are replaced with simply trying to slog through school. It may even be frustrating enough to make one give up entirely and become satisfied with all that is static and passable instead of reaching for the new and the incredible. You may be thinking that it’s easy to say a lot of pretty things about self-improvement, but it’s another thing to be standing in your shoes with all of the practical difficulties of your chosen goal firmly preventing you from making a move toward it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in college it’s that any amount of work or effort seems easier if I feel like it’s worth it, because it’s helping me to get where I want to be. It helps me to think of it this way. I may not regret that I wasted time working toward a goal that was beyond my reach, but I will regret more deeply never having discovered how far my reach extends. Even if you graduate in December, and you are thinking that you’re pretty much all done with the college thing, why not go the extra mile to make what little time you have left truly valuable to you. As George Eliot said, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” Not wanting to sound pushy like I’m your mother or some sort of motivational speaker, I just worry that sometimes in the bustle of preparing for a new school year a lot of wonderful opportunities may be neglected. Finally, I want to encourage you to consider any positive potential change in your life as an excellent idea, no matter how small. I find that the accumulation of many little things turning out right help me tackle the big things when they come my way. So please, make the most of this new start and decide what improvements you’d like in your life. Let today be day one.
What is something you want to improve on? E-mail your thoughts to [email protected]
