Level Up

So I'm no longer a freshman. Thus the title "Musings of a College Freshman" seems inadequate. However, I don't want to start a new blog because A) I barely blog anyway and B) idk. So I'm changing the name. Boom done.

Mistakes

So, we all make mistakes. It's not something we like, or are proud of, but it happens. And for the most part, these mistakes are unfortunate, but not horrible. However, every once in a while, we manage to actually fuck up really bad. Really, really, bad.

Luckily for me, even though I made a series of extremely poor choices, I came out of it alright. Call it God, luck, fate, karma, it doesn't matter; the bottom line is I am one lucky kid.

One thing that's really hard when you make a mistake is admitting it and dealing with the shame and judgement of others. Once again, I am so lucky. I am surrounded by caring, understanding people, who have looked past my epic failure almost instantly. I don't what I did to earn such good friends, and while I appreciate them being so amazing, it also makes me feel even worse about letting them down. Which I guess I deserve.

Often, the easiest part of making a mistake is actually physically fixing it. This typically involves a pretty straightforward series of steps. It's the part of the mistake involving people that seems impossible to fix and never really goes back to the way it was.

Despite how ridiculously beyond stupid I was, and how improbably lucky I was, I still regret what happened, but I'm also glad.

For one, I realized that I am not my own self-contained disaster bubble. Everything I do affects others, whether I see it or not. Knowing that my recklessness can hurt others has changed how I think about what I do and will change how I make decisions, knowing that any mistakes I make could hurt my friends.

I also learned a valuable lesson regarding how to handle mistakes. When you make a mistake, even one as horrible as mine, there is nothing you can do to change the past. You can't go back and make different choices. You can only look at the situation and focus on doing what must be done. Do not spend time pitying yourself or looking for others pity. Do not spend hours berating yourself or blaming yourself or others. Simply admit that you did indeed fuck up, and move on. This is by no means easy, but the truth is, none of that stuff will help anyone, accomplish anything, or make the situation better.

Instead, you just have to pick something to do, and do it. Focusing on the things that need to be done and pouring all your energy into them will not only help you and everyone else forget, but it will help you redeem yourself, in your eyes and maybe in others eyes, by showing that you are stronger than your failures and short-comings.

There are no mistakes, just steps you didn't realize were on the right path.

Here's to praying that holds true. In the end, you still control your attitude, if nothing else, so be the kind of person you should be and not the kind of person it's easy to be.

Expectations

Expectations are some of the trickiest things in the whole planet. They skew your perceptions of the world in a certain way, and when they are not met, your whole world is rocked. However, without expectations, we are just lost, confused, and unengaged. We need to expect something in order to really be invested in life, but we have to learn to be flexible when those expectations are different than reality.

I was expecting spring break training to be fun. And at first, all I felt was pain. Lots of pain. But as I began to just expect misery, I realized that I was actually having fun. I remember when I was really little we were carving pumpkins at my grandparents house, and something didn't go exactly as my sister expected it so she stormed off crying. She missed the rest of the fun because she was so set in her one expectation she couldn't enjoy the reality.

With regards to college, I didn't know what to expect. I was expecting Purdue to be kind of boring and lame. But I had no idea beyond that what would happen at college. I was ready to be on my own, and that was really all I knew. Purdue trashed my expectations in the first week. I loved it. Campus was vibrant and there was so much to do! So many people! Then everything I tried surprised me. I joined a sorority, with absolutely NO idea what I was getting into, and actually enjoy it for the most part. I joined crew extremely skeptically thinking it would be way too intense for me, but I've actually come to love it despite all the hard days.

I've also changed a lot as a person, which I didn't expect. I thought I was pretty much going to be the same person I was when I left high school. Saying it out loud, it sounds silly. Of course I wouldn't stay the same. But perhaps what surprised me more than that I changed, is how I changed. I am still me, but I am learning to say more, be more firm in what I think, instead of just burying my own opinions in order to appease those around me.

Some of my changes are less positive. I lost my dedication to school work. I've fully embraced the "real world", learning from spending time out and about with people, instead of staring at my computer calculating integrals. I haven't found the discipline to balance my life and schoolwork. I hear that this particular problem gets easier once you are in classes you actually care about, which makes sense, so I'll buy it. Next semester will hopefully be a little better.

And some things I just didn't expect. I hadn't even considered them. It's amazing how many thing there are in life, how many tweaks to personality, little minute details in how you walk, talk, dress, act, think.  I can't even nail down exactly how or what things have changed, but every once in a while I learn something or someone notices something that I didn't even know existed, like a distinct gait, or things that everyone else just knows/assumes based on little evidence that I am completely unaware of.

One change that I am fighting is becoming more judgmental, making snap assessments of people based on what you first see or hear. I usually just take everything about a person into consideration when I think about them, and I don't fill in the gaps very often, I just wait until people fill them in for me with the truth.

I don't know if this is good or bad, or maybe it's just how I think. But the more I see people make quick decisive decisions about people and filling in the blanks to fit their expectation,s the more I find myself trying to dig in my heels and fight the expectation.