When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to graduate and go to college. I dreamed about how great the college life would be without parents, cliques and the bells and rigid routine of a 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. school day.
Now here I am on the brink of a December graduation, and I realize that day could not come soon enough. It seems like I am waiting forever on that elusive day when life will be better.
Why do we put off our lives until tomorrow? We walk around not living today because tomorrow the grass will be greener on the other side of the fence. I don’t know about you, but it seems like that day never lasts as long as it should.
Every year starts with a group of my friends and myself sitting around talking about how great that year is going to be and how much more fun we will have. Not surprisingly, somewhere along the way that optimistic feeling disappears, and it’s replaced with another longing for next year.
If we always look for tomorrow, we miss our true lives. Our lives are not lived tomorrow—they are lived in the moments on the way to tomorrow. Life happens whether we live it or not.
How many times have you thought “I can not wait until … “? These are the times when we do ourselves the greatest injustice. These are the times when we miss our own lives. And I, for one, am sick of living my life in pieces.
When I was young, my mother told me not to wait for Santa Claus to bring me everything I wanted. She said I would have to make my own life into what I wanted it to be without waiting for someone else to do it for me.
In my experience, this is exactly what we all do: we wait for something magical to happen to us and bring our greatest dreams to life. Instead of getting out into the world, we watch it pass us by.
Last year, I wanted nothing more than for August to come, bringing with it a new roommate, new classes, new people and a new chance to start over. In college, life is full of chances to start over.
Every day we have the chance to meet new people from all different backgrounds on the Drill Field, in The Union and in classes. Each year we choose new roommates to share our lives with and new places to live. Every semester we change classes and choose new areas to explore. But we should not wait for August to change; we need to stand up and start living our lives today.
We often put our lives on hold to finish the three papers that are due that week, the following week and the week after. College is about learning, but not just about learning advanced algebra, chemistry or literature. It’s about learning to live, too. Sometimes you just have to step back and breathe.
Maybe these are not the only things that keep us from living our lives. Maybe sometimes we are afraid, too. Fear of failure can be a powerful thing. It can hold us back from reaching our full potential and our lifelong dreams.
The almighty “What if?” often causes us to hang back and not throw ourselves headfirst into life. There are times when we should forget the “What if?” and stop worrying about the consequences. What begins as a bad idea sometimes ends up as one of the most worthwhile experiences of our lives.
So whatever it is that you have been holding off on, whether it’s sky diving or asking the cute guy that sits next to you in algebra out for coffee, just take a deep breath and dive in. This life is all about the ride.