accepting change

it seems as though college is the place we are to figure out who we are. although I can say that college is the place where I learned to accept who I am, I can’t help but think about my wonder of this question throughout my past four years.

At this point in my life, I fully believe that we are the sum of our past experiences. No person can ever say that they understand what another is going through because the thoughts with which we enter each new experience are vastly different. The perspectives we have, the emotions we feel are shaped by the way we’ve experienced moments in our individual pasts. Furthermore, because we are constantly experiencing new things and participating in new conversations, the amount of experiences we have are ever increasing. We are ever changing. Moment to moment, day to day, we are NEVER the same.

After nearly four years of trying my best to figure out who I am, I have discovered that since my pre-teen years, I have functioned off of a core of basic ideals. some taken from my faith, others from my parents, all philosophies I use to make decisions.

Undoubtably frustrating, I have accepted that I am ever changing. However, after much contemplation, I have found that my fundamental beliefs have remained fairly constant (at least since I’ve been aware of them). This is likely the most comforting and rewarding realization of my college years.

Setting the Scene

From my experience as a typical mid-western, I have found that my life thus far has been, more or less, planned for me; my only expectation has been to navigate the pre-determined path. Which I have done, for the most part. Obviously, we attend school K-12 at the location our parents have chosen. Our teachers and guidance counselors administer various exams that tell us the careers in which we would most likely succeed. Most of us then, take the advice from these tests or our families and choose a major. We then choose a college that has this degree and is relatively close to home (although we complain the first 18 years of existence about our hometowns we can’t imagine being so far away we couldn’t easily make it back at the first inkling of homesickness).

College is the place you find “the one.” Whether “the one” is the perfect career, the perfect internship, or the perfect spouse.

For me, this is not the case. I have found a topic that I enjoy, for which I have now finished my undergraduate degree. Unfortunately I cannot do too much in terms of a career with a Bachelor Degree in Pre-Audiology. Although I have applied for graduate schools, I am entering the post-college life without any acceptance letters or concrete plans. For the first time in my entire existence I have no one telling me what I am to do. The liberation is terrifying. I am at a stand still, not-so-patiently waiting to figure our where to take my next step. As this point in my life has slowly crept up, I have experienced every emotion and every mix of emotions I can imagine. After a seemingly endless string of poor decisions, I like to think I’ve finally figured it out.

Just kidding.