Good day to all of the delightful drops of sweet honey bee charmers who are reading these words! I am so excited to welcome you all back to my column, where I impose insightful ideas into your brains and hopefully get some neurons bumping around inside that noggin of yours.
Spring break is coming up quickly and in a few bats of an eye, summer break will have us frolicking away from the hustle and bustle of college life for a hot minute before the next year rolls around… that is unless you are graduating, and in that case, c’est la vie!
Over the past few weeks, through hearing the words of others, I have come to acquire the knowledge that there are many students who feel largely unfulfilled with their line of study, the way their life has been playing out or the overall impending doom of life seeping into the workings of their minds.
That’s why we should bring back the term that originated in the simpler days of 2011 with Drake’s “The Motto:” YOLO!
For those who may have never heard of this strange, yet endearing, term, “YOLO,” stands for “you only live once,” and honestly, we need to resurface this ideology into our lives. Yes: I’m talking about rebelling against the societal and parental ideas of success and fulfillment.
While it is beyond my ability to pinpoint all of my dear reader’s dreams and desires and how to attain them, I believe that it is necessary at some point in all of our lives for us to look inward towards our personal goals and find ways to reach what we have been dreaming about experiencing.
Speaking from experience, for the majority of this year, I was planning on working towards getting an internship that will help me in my future employment endeavors, as one responsibly does. I perfected my resume, compiled a list of my most impressive samples of work and researched a heck ton of internships for companies that I was qualified for.
As I was miserably applying to internships, stressing about where I would be living, working and how I would survive this summer, two events serendipitously occurred which have led me to this point in my life.
First, while I was home over winter break, I discovered a piece of my writing from when I was eight years old saying that I really wanted to travel to New Mexico. Secondly, when I got back to college, I opened up my journal to find a list of my goals, the majority which were surrounded around travel and my strong desire to visit the desert in the southwestern states.
It was then that I decided to take time this year to take matters into my own hands of accomplishing an aspect of my goals and dreams, even if it takes living off of oats cooked under the sun, sleeping in my car in tractor trailer lots, or wearing hats each day to cover up third day greasy hair.
I completely understand that everyone was raised in a different fashion, however, there comes a point in our lives, as young adults, where we are able to make a certain amount of decisions for ourselves and I feel as though being miserable in one’s life and refusing to change does not lead to growth and empowerment. I do not want y’all to think that I am empowering you to rebel, I am simply asking you to take your life into your own hands.
I understand that not everyone has family, finances or facetious attitudes towards the future as I do. However, I do believe that if you truly take a moment to recognize your goals and put them into action, taking a step back from the mundane societal standards imposed on college aged adults of finding a nine to five internship that makes you want to find a nice cave in the ocean to crawl into, while your family may not be the most content, your present and future self will thank you for taking risks and living out your dreams in the most realistic manner.