From our birth up to now, everything we do is jotted down and recorded. Everything about us changes -- our weight, our height and even our teeth fall out. As people, change is always expected, we always hear, “Change is good.” With this change in our lives though, comes the comparison, the expectation that you are going to change because that is what happens when you grow up. When you grow up, you learn to get out of your comfort zone and it's a magical thing. Getting out of your comfort zone means that you must be comfortable with yourself and even if you're not, at least you’re making an effort to make life as amazing as possible.
Now, why do I say all this? I’m a college freshman and in these last two months, everything in my life has done a complete 360. I have gone through some extreme hardships. I lost a job and am currently still in search for one. I’ve had a lot of trying times in my relationship. I’ve dealt with an excruciating workload along with my endless string of commitments. I've also tried to submerge myself into a commuter school, which is known to be painstakingly anti-social. That being said, these two months have given me some of the best and worst times of my life. But it has also brought me so much change, most of which I am trying to take in stride.
Through all this change, I have learned one lesson which stands true to me -- you must always be comfortable with yourself, no matter what. You must be comfortable being by yourself and being in your own skin. In these past two months, I have found comfort in solitude and now I do everything alone. I have been pulled apart from many of the things that kept me so grounded, many of the things that made me so comfortable. Being comfortable at this point in my life makes me feel stuck and I don’t want that yet or ever, honestly.
In learning to be comfortable with myself I have done so much, that I would have held myself back from doing. I went to an “Of Mice & Men” concert a few weeks ago, which is my favorite band, alone. I bought the tickets a month in advance and worried about the refund process for my tickets if I didn’t find anyone to come with me. The weeks went by and by the time I knew it, it was the night before the concert. I spent all day at the concert. It was the most worried I’d ever been and the most uncomfortable I’d been in a while. I stood alone without no one to talk to in a crowd of people. But I threw myself in the music and made sure that I enjoyed myself. I made myself comfortable in an extremely intimidating social situation.
Change is difficult and in many cases, it takes a lot to truly make a person change themselves. This is not to say that I am one hundred percent confident in all social situations but going through the college transition has made me a better person. I think everyone can create the change they want to see in themselves by pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and into the situation. Change is inevitable, so you might as well learn to love it.
