As college students coming fresh off Thanksgiving Break, man, does it feel bad to have to go back to school. Having tasted freedom, connected with our friends back home, and feasting until food coma, the last thing we want to do is return to our late night study sessions.

If my break was anything like any of yours, it was a boundless mess of food, old friends, and draft beers, but what a fun mess it was. I did nothing at all of significance, and the beautiful thing was I harbored no guilt. Life is hard sometimes, and a break is sometimes all you need to reorient.

After a break where any comfort was within reach, it's just so easy to be satisfied with the "comfort zone" that we currently exist in. That's the natural way of the world really, where things take the path of least resistance. But if we want to experience greater comforts and greater satisfaction, the "comfort zone" needs to be slowly nudged upward. And the only way to do this is by living outside of it.

Every one of us has an interpretation of who we are and mold ourselves to those specifications. These originate and are influenced by social interactions in our environment, resulting in attitudes such as "I'm not smart enough" or "it's too hard/impossible." Although it may be hard to see at first, anything that comes from the social environment is not worth keeping.

The world is full of people who accept the comfort zone with open arms and thus the world is full of mediocrity. Push through this social barrier and instead of believing "I'm not smart enough", believe that "I'm not smart enough YET." The world is already limiting enough without you getting in your own way.

And that's just it. Complacency is a never-ending struggle with yourself to not settle.

With the last few weeks of the semester ahead, for me, this means that whether I feel ready for finals week or not, and whether I feel like I can safely pass a class, I'm studying my ass off. Hope to see you in the library too and close the semester out strong!