As a sophomore in college, I have been given the most amazing gift--meeting and living with my current five roommates (now four. See my article from two weeks ago to understand why...). I met all of them at very different times during my freshman year and didn't even become really close with a couple of them until I was living with them. What's amazing is how different we all are, but we are able to feed off of each other's differences and learn from them. Here are some of the best lessons I've learned from living with my roommates:
Self-care is a philosophy that one of my roommates has taught me to be the most important one I follow. Before I lived with these five amazing women, I always put school before absolutely anything. I would constantly be stressed out and would keep myself up until 3:00am doing homework almost every night to make sure everything was perfect. But since my roommates introduced the concept of self-love and taking care of myself and my mental health, I've been able to recognize that getting four to five hours of sleep each night isn't healthy and so on. Focusing primarily on school and not letting myself cater to my creative outlets or relaxing my mind, in general, will ultimately make me much worse off. I'm not saying that they've told me to completely neglect my studies, but I've learned to make sure that I make time for myself--to dedicate some time to the things that make me the happiest, or some time to just relax.
One roommate, in particular, has specifically helped me to appreciate the little things in life. Some of the happiest times I've seen her have been simply involving a puppy--or more like a guinea pig--or anything relating to Disney. As much as these things also make me happy, it's been amazing to watch and learn that the small things in life like this can make you really happy and add a brighter light to your day than what you thought it would. Since becoming her friend, I've tried to take a step back and let a lot of little things make me really happy and it's been amazing to experience those types of feelings.
Another one of my roommates has an insane ability to remain perfectly unbiased in any conflict that doesn't directly involve her. As much as I have always tried to apply the same ideology to my own approach to outside conflict, I find it incredibly difficult to completely detach myself from the issue and see it purely for what it is. This is a lesson that I'm still trying to work on, but it's my goal to get to the point that she is at.
One of my roommates is an aspiring actress (and she's amazing so get ready world) and I find her to be incredibly inspiring to me as a musician and even as a writer. It's hard to disregard people's warnings of pursuing an ambition that is really hard to achieve and actually go for it because you actually can't function without it being in your life. You'd rather be doing what you love then have a really good paying job that you dread going to. But she has a way of saying "screw you I'm doing it anyway and I don't care what you tell me", and that's exactly the type of mentality you need to have when you're chasing your dreams. Go out and kill it, girl. I expect front row tickets to your first Broadway show.
Finally, my last roommate has taught me the value and complication that involves unconditional compassion. On one side I find it incredibly inspiring and compelling--she has the absolute biggest heart of anyone I know of. It is beautiful how much she cares about the people that matter the most to her and even people that are not necessarily the most prominent in her life. That is my ultimate goal: to love unconditionally and rid the hate that may linger for pointless events in my life. But I have also seen people take advantage of how amazing this depth of compassion is and that has taught me to take a step back and try to understand who deserves the compassion I so willingly give off and who doesn't. Either way, I find her heart to be so pure and it's been amazing to learn how it works.
I learn something from living with these five amazing women every day.
