For most of this blog’s existence, I’ve learned things because I was in college. And it was hard. And it was painful. And it was stretching me more and more for real life.
Thankfully, I documented those lessons and typed them on web pages and pressed publish so no matter how much I would like to journal by hand, at least I have a record of what eye-opening moments showed up on my doorstep for three years.
Something told me you all might love some of that insight – especially if you’re in college or sinking waist deep into life.
19) And then do me a favor? Meet this girl. Her ratio of body mass to ounces of love is downright not mathematical.
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I’m a big believer in life-long learning and, at times, a bit anxious about that statement. The truth is, these years we’re in right now are some pretty wild and tough ones. But we’re experiencing them on this vast spectrum and none of us can capture all the lessons ourselves. We’ve GOT to learn from others, too.
So I sent an email to people all over the country and in different places in their lives, some in school, some ready to find a job, some firmly rooted in a career and others feeling timid about how miserable they feel.
I asked them one question: What’s the MOST important lesson you learned in 2012? Here’s what they had to say.
1. Convention is overrated.
“I will have a TABLE of people at my some-day wedding that I met through Twitter, Facebook or email chains. I have met so many people who I consider to be important pieces of my life that I NEVER would have met if I were too skeptical to look outside of the ‘box’.
Also, that hard work will always, ALWAYS pay off. Always.” – @dmdgiants, senior at Marist College, intern with the New Jersey Devils
2. I am enough.
“On a particularly self-loathing day in 2012, I decided to do some research on positive mantras when I came across this one. For much of my life, my perfectionist self had struggled to be “the best” (whatever that means) and often compared my successes, and shortcomings, to others.
I work a nine-to-five at a software company only to come home after a yoga class, maybe a run and an hour commute to write away for whichever assignment I was lucky enough to receive. These days are trying; these days are long. I go to bed exhausted and hope to awake with renewed energy and strength.
I spent much of 2012 hoping for a better future – a better job (full of writing), a better outlook on life, a better me.
Then one day it hit me. I’m missing the best of today looking for a better tomorrow. I am missing the beautiful imperfections of the now in hopes for an impossibly flawless future.
I need nothing more than to be the ‘me’ I am today.
I am enough. And so are you.” – @taylornunez, Software specialist, freelance journalist for Worcester Magazine and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, yoga enthusiast
3. Make yourself happy.
“I learned last year that you have to make yourself happy, no one else will do that for you. Take time to do the small things that make you enjoy life, like reading a book or baking your favorite cookies. Take care of yourself because you can’t be the good in the world if you feel like crap.” – @cerogers0, graduate student at James Madison University, student teacher
4. Go four for four.
“1. You can and will make the same mistakes twice if you’re not careful. But you can also rebuild your life a thousand times over. Thankfully, there’s no limit on that.
2. Every single person has his or her own idea of what happiness, success and failure would look like in his/her life. Define yours and don’t compare yours to anyone else’s version.
“Don’t be ashamed to live your college life on the couch, not going to class, eating bonbons and watching the Kardashians because that couch is the perfect training grounds for the soul-deadening desk job — in which you will spend 35 out of 40 hours of your working week alternately staring off into space and compulsively checking every manner of social media site and/or food blog — that awaits us all. But perhaps it’s important to find a hobby just to enliven your soul or alleviate boredom or some shit; mine is moonlighting as an ESL teacher.” – @samanthascotti, proofreader, ESL teacher
5. The Internet is a web.
“I’ve learned not to underestimate the power of a single connection to a person or organization because it can lead to even more connections and more opportunities for development. The three online communities that I write for (HUGstronger, So Worth Loving, and The Write Teacher) are all things I found through The World Needs More Love Letters, and I couldn’t be happier to be a part of them.
Related to that, I’ve also learned that making connections over the Internet is okay. I think a lot of people are worried about the internet somehow making us less social or ruining our lives, but there’s a wealth of information, opportunity, and cool people out there on the World Wide Web. It’s not a black hole of distraction if you use it right.” – @erind90, senior at Clarke University, blogger
6. Let love in.
“2012 taught me that it’s okay to let people love you. It’s okay to trust that you are lovable and intriguing and close to perfection for someone else. Don’t be scared to smile at a stranger- they could have a story you need to hear. Take the risk and email the girl whose blog you read – she could surprise you and reply (Thanks, Kaleigh for replying to my own email!). Let a boy ask you about the scars on your heart and tell him the truth- he could teach you what it’s like to feel a little bit closer to whole. And most of all, it’s okay to love yourself. Look in the mirror, smile and realize you are beautifully made. Love makes life, life.” – @lab54, photographer
7. Trust yourself.
“I think we have this tendency to second guess ourselves. Because of our age or where we are in life or because we’re just unsure of what will happen next. Trust that initial gut feeling though; it happens for a reason. Know that being young does not mean sacrificing confidence. Be bold, be curious, and be open to learning. Just trust yourself along the way as well – you’re capable of doing great things.
“One day, you’re going to have to leave behind all the magnificant-things-happening-at-this-moment-in-time for something even more wondrous. It’ll sting for a bit, but without moving forward, how will you bloom?” – @lovemesomebags, student at James Madison University, Chief Designer at Gardy Loo
9. Honesty is terrifyingly necessary.
“Honesty is an essential part of bravery. Be honest firstly with yourself. Don’t be afraid of who you are, what you want, and how you are feeling. After you can learn to be honest with yourself, you can be honest with those around you. Honesty can lead to some of the most terrifying moments for your soul, but they are moments that grow your soul and your relationships. Do not fear honesty. It is your companion and your victor.” – @livfierce, student and photographer
10. Love yourself first.
“I think that the most important lesson that people not only our age but every age can learn to is to love themselves. Our world can be cruel and cold (I know this too well) and too often do people let that affect the way they think about themselves, judging too harshly and beating themselves up. We spend so much time trying to be like other people we forget to be who we are but once you embrace who you are fully, it is beautiful and liberating and fearless. And yes everyone has insecurities, I will always think I have man shoulders, I don’t wear many hats because I think my head is too big, I think I am a little too messy and I wish I didn’t procrastinate so much. But when it comes down to it, none of that stuff matters because the truth is, I had to sit and think for 10 minutes to come up with those four things because instead I kept thinking that I like, no, LOVE that my eyes change different hues of blue and my hair is kind of out of control curly sometimes, that I speak my mind too often. I LOVE that I laugh too loud, and smile too big and I eat too much sugar. All things that could be listed as flaws but I just can’t see them that way.
So here’s the secret to being happy, to loving others and to success. Except it’s not so secret. Everyone from Maya Angelou to Albert Einstein to Lady Gaga can be quoted saying how important it is to love yourself. Because once you start those positive thoughts will consume you and radiate out of you. So you will be willing to risk, and change and take chances (which is my second most important piece of advice) because once you know how wonderful you are, others can’t help but see it too.” – Emily, student at Temple University, aspiring actress
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It was only a year ago that I was feeling antsy about this real world lifestyle, knowing that working hard was a not a skill people put on resumes. I knew I would work tirelessly, that I would do anything I could to learn and grow and be someone worth putting faith into, but did the human resources professionals of the Eastern seaboard know that? Well, I wasn’t sure.
Yesterday, a friend of mine admitted to a fear quite similar. And as they say, it’s easier to look objectively from the outside in. I knew, deep down, she was golden. Just brimming with energy and passion and experience. Her resume, in the right hands, will be understood and appreciated.
This post I wrote nearly two years ago, for all the worriers and anxiety-ridden recent and future college graduates who have no idea what will become of their lives in these coming months.
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The future is 34 pushpins pressed into a map of the United States.
It doesn’t matter how precisely we press each pin into that cork backing. The future is shy and unforgiving and anticipatory and utterly unknowable.
My roommate stood next to her map, cupped her forearms around a cluster of pins along the West coast.
“Probability says California,” she said to me.
I nodded, trying to imagine her in the sunny state, me in New York City and our other roommate in Washington, DC.
I couldn’t.
It’s funny how one home transitions into another. In five years, I have found myself in Pennsylvania and Virginia, New Jersey and Maryland. Looking back, it’s seamless. But when I was at the edge of each cliff, eager and nervous to jump, it was like the first time I realized the world was in constant motion.
For all those moments leading up to a big, shifting change, we’re too busy preparing and pushing onward to think about what happens when our parents unload the trunk and cart our luggage up stairs and shut the door, leaving us alone for the first time.
For three years and eight months, the idea of graduating college is just that – an idea. And then, someone pulls out the big G word and it’s everything again.
We feel it rising up from the pit in our stomachs like a wave of nausea forcing you to sit down and center yourself on that pushpin-invested map. Begging you to regain balance and stability for just a while longer.
“Where will I be in the future?” we wonder.
“You’ll live on the lake,” I told her then. “I can picture it.”
And I could, then. The forests rising up on three sides. A vast expanse of murky water in front of her. The laughter of children in the background.
I saw her stretch out on the shoreline, digging her toes into the grass and dirt. I saw her put down her book to crane her neck, motioning her daughter to come to her.
“Do you want to go for a swim?” she asked.
The girl, her hair as white-blonde as her mother’s, nodded vehemently and tugged her t-shirt over her head.
She reached the line where the water meets land, lifted one foot, and frowned.
“What’s wrong?” her mother asked.
The girl shook her head and started back toward the spot on the grass where her mom stretched out.
“It’s too cold,” she said.
Her mom sets her book down. “How do you know?”
She shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t know.
“Come on.”
The two of them walked to the edge. Holding hands, they took a deep breath and waded, gently, into the murky water. A fish swam past and the little girl squealed, latching onto her mother’s leg.
After a moment, she released her grasp. She waded out farther and, without warning, dove under the water. When she emerged, she brushed her hair back and giggled.
“Brrr,” she said. “It’s warmer in the water.”
It’s the first moment that will string together a couple thousand others. The initial shock of icy water filling her lungs grew into a comfort. It’s warmer in the water. What once was cold and terrifying and new became familiar and wanted.
Only one of those pushpins became home for my roommate. She did not, contrary to probability, end up anywhere near California. But where she lives now, there is a lake with icy water. And try as she might, she won’t be able to emerge without shivering. She’ll learn, in these few years, it’s warmer in the water.
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There is only one book I have ever hesitated to throw out. And it’s not America’s Greatest Novel or the Guide To Getting Everything You Want.
The man who gave it to me, I haven’t seen since. But he slapped it down on my desk, gave me a crash course in how to read it, and handed me a pack of sticky tabs.
It was the first time in my life someone ever hinted that I could flip through a book and roadmap my life in a matter of half an hour. No matter that there were countless atlases available at souvenir shops in airport terminals worldwide. Or that I could sift through Amazon.com listings for books on career mapping and jumping from one goal to the next like lily pads.
This felt a lot more structured, what with a book of options in one hand and a yellow double-sided checklist in the other.
It was June 26, 2008. I had thirty minutes to decide how I would spend the next six months of my life, and those tools were all I had.
So I cracked the spine and started mapping out options, setting aside a Plan B and C in case someone else swept up my priorities before I could schedule the first courses of my college career, and I made decisions that didn’t feel weighted, even if they should have.
Over the next four years, I opened that course catalog routinely, sat down in front of my desk, and drew up a four-year plan. I grew addicted to the feeling of plotting out my life so easily, just by taking a checklist (with a myriad of options, each tailored to my own interests) and a list of options. I reveled in the weeks before it was my turn to register for another semester of credits.
I didn’t exactly give myself a moment to think about how that structure might evolve in the months after graduating. But it seems so silly now, knowing all I’ll ever have to do is make a list of what I need and what I want and find the center of the Venn diagram.
In that sliver of space, small for some and large for others, resides the key that all of us have the potential to unlock. But few of us think to look there.
I have spent post after post writing “Do what you love,” like doodles in the margins of your art history notebook, but I have forgotten to tell you that that four-word phrase means not to hoard your passions and qualify them based on possible and impossible.
It means writing them down and knowing them when you wake up in the morning. It means looking at yourself in the medicine cabinet mirror while brushing your teeth and thinking about where you want to end the day.
All I ever learned about structuring my life and plotting it like milestones to something grand, something I couldn’t even envision in the two weeks after high school graduation, I learned in college.
You can pin pictures of chalkboards with cursive type telling you to be the change until your shift starts at the local diner, but it won’t change a thing. The change you so desperately want begins the moment you swim in it, the moment you lose yourself in the tangibles, the planning, the step-by-step measurements that guide you like a yellow brick road to your very own Oz.
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