In college making friends is incredibly important as your friends are the people who get you through your degree (especially if you travelled far for college). However, when making these friends you want to make sure that you have a wide variety of “lifestyles” so that all the important aspects of your life are met. I consider the most important aspects of life to be your academics, your health/wellness, your social life, and the adventuring side of yourself.
1. The academic aspect of lifestyle
I personally feel that academics are probably the most important part of your college lifestyle because why else would you pay thousands of dollars to be here. That being said it is important to have people in your life who are focused on academics, even if you aren’t incredibly invested in school. These people are there to motivate you and push you to be successful academically which will open so many doors for the future such as job or travel opportunities.
2. The health and wellness aspect of lifestyle
In college many people focus so much on every other aspect of their lives that they forget about their personal health and wellness. Don’t get me wrong, there are people who are all about their health meaning they eat super healthy and hit the gym all the time. But there are also people who don’t get any activity and just eat whatever they want. It is important to have people who care about all aspects of their health and wellness.
This means they care about physical, emotional, and social health. These people will be the ones who push you to eat healthy and then also go to the gym or at least get you to be active. Being active doesn’t only help with weight loss, it keeps all your muscles active and growing especially the cardiac (heart) muscles.
All you need is to be active and moving for 30 minutes a day to maintain your current levels of wellness, and a little more if you want to improve it. But let’s be honest, who wants to go to the gym or throw a frisbee or even just go for a walk, alone? I certainly don’t and that is the most common reason people let their health and wellness slip.
3. The social life aspect of lifestyle
Your social life will help maintain your overall health and wellness however it is important to find people who fit in with your social desires. That could be going out every weekend to the bars or whatever party you can find, or staying in and playing board games with your friends. These people will help let you unwind and relax after a long week and have fun in the process.
4. The adventure aspect of lifestyle
Everyone likes to adventure but there are totally different types of adventures depending on the person you are. For me I would love to go out to Acadia and just explore and adventure. This allows you to find new things, and learn more about yourself. Doing these alone is not ideal because you are less likely to try something new without someone telling you about it.
These are all of these aspects of someone lifestyle and combining them all defines the lifestyle of an individual. In a group of friends you want to have people to satisfy all aspects of your life in order to make you the happiest, healthiest, and well rounded person you can be.
It is also totally okay that if someone does not have the same lifestyle as you and guess what, you can still be the closest friends. Everyone is different and has different plans and life goals, they were also raised differently and have been through different experiences than you. Therefore, their lifestyles, and choices are going to be different than yours and that does not mean you should completely exclude them from your life.