Before college, I was often told that I resembled the girl who seemed to have it all. Good grades. Great friends. Impressive resume. I was the ambitious overachiever, the social butterfly everyone knew, the independent woman trapped in an adolescent's body. I was able to juggle AP/accelerated classes, community college courses, leadership positions in several extracurricular activities, three jobs, and a social life. I never really had to try too hard in school to get good grades--they sort of came naturally to me. I never had to study too much to do well on my exams. In fact, I rarely, if ever, studied for anything. If I did, I would simply reread the material the day prior to my exam. Call me crazy, but hey, if it works, it works. Halfway through high school, I thought I was already prepared to be a college student. But boy, was I wrong.


To be frank, because of my time spent here at the University of Michigan, I feel like I've developed ADHD and learned to love dawdling. Okay, maybe not love, but learned to accept procrastinating far more often than I once did.
Am I where I would like to be in my life right now? Not quite. But I don't necessarily regret the way things turned out. It all happened for a reason. Maybe that reason is a reality check. A wake-up call to show me how, with just one decision, my life could either turn out to be really great or really awful. For now, I'm going to do the best I can to end the semester strong. I'm going to try to divert my attention away from the external influences and keep my eye on the prize. Next semester, I'm going to do all it takes to stay on track and narrow my interests to what truly matters.
As a friend once told me:
"Life changes every minute of every day. You lose and you gain friends. You realize your friend wasn't ever really your friend and that person you used to hate can make a really good friend. You look for love. You find and you lose love. You realize all along that you've been loved. You laugh, you cry. You laugh so hard that you cry. You do this, you do that. You really wish you hadn't done that. Your learn from that and are glad you did it. You have your ups and your downs. You see good movies. You see bad movies. You wonder if your life is just one big movie. You look at others and wish you were them. You then realize who they are and are glad that you're you. You love life. You hate life. In the end, you just find yourself happy to be living life, no matter what's thrown at you."
I'm feeling the exact same way as you, Amber! I have a feeling we're not alone. (: I think it's awesome that we've had so many opportunities to try and join new things, although it can be overwhelming at times. Sometimes I take a step back though and realize how lucky I truly am.
ReplyDeleteYou aren't alone, Amber. I think most people are struggling to keep up with everything and decide what they want to commit to. I know I struggle with deciding to do homework and study. The one thing that really annoys me is when people say, "Yeah, most people are used to being the best and they come here and realize they aren't the best anymore." That always pisses me off. Just because we aren't as straight A as we were in high school doesn't mean we aren't still amazing! Everyone needs time to adjust to new ways of life, it isn't instantaneous.
ReplyDeleteI'm experiencing the same thing! There are SO many cool opportunities here that I want to take advantage of, but then, once you do, there's barely time to think about what you're actually doing. For me, it's gotten better over the semester, but I don't want my time here to go to waste! I feel like it's all just a big change for everyone, and we all feel like everything's a bit intangible right now...I have a feeling we'll get a better grasp on things as the year goes on.
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