You worry about everything. You worry if you’ll be good enough, if your work is adequate, even if people will like you. It’s always in the back of your head: “Am I good enough?” “Is what I do worth it?”
Sometimes, the pressure is too much for you and you don’t know what to do. You take a few days off from school, skip a few classes. You call it a mental rest day, later realizing that you did more harm than good.
College students always question their decisions and the paths that they're choosing to take in life. Millennials tend not to settle down or commit to decisions that they make, and I don’t blame us: We were only 18 when we had to decide what we wanted to be for the rest of our lives. Eighteen year old's that hardly knew what was out there in the world, in charge of choosing their fate for the rest of their life, and for what? To make our parents happy? To make money?
Whatever the reason, the real question is will we, Millennials, actually find happiness? Many times society tells us, “You have to go get a degree, get the best jobs out there, etc.,” but what society doesn’t tell us is how to actually find peace within ourselves, how to get rid of all the doubts and discouragements that we face. How to actually be happy and get rid of that constant worry.
From my own experience, facing my doubts is an everyday struggle. Trying not to regret the decisions that I make in my everyday life is one of my greatest battles within myself. I’m sure I’m not the only one who faces this. When faced with pressures from school, parents, jobs, and so forth, doubting the things I do is expected.
It’s not easy facing these problems all on our own. Some advice I can give is to just have a positive support system always available to you. This can either consist of friends, families, professors, or even strangers.
One time a few years ago, I was sitting in front of Webb, waiting for class to begin. I had about 30 minutes left to go when another girl sat next to me. We started making small talk and, next thing you know, we started giving life advice to each other. She had recently went through a rough time in her life and I was just having a bad day. Even though I didn’t know her and we only talked for 30 minutes, I felt that I was being supported by someone.
In a world where society tells us what we are expected to do, it's up to us to get rid of the constant doubts that we face. I’ll tell you this. It might sound cliché, but everything will be OK. Ten years from now we won’t even remember the things we said at that one party or that one exam that we got a 53 on. All of it will become irrelevant.
Sometimes we get too involved in our present and forget where we are heading. We are responsible to be the best we can in the current moment, but we shouldn’t stress out constantly about the issues that we face now.
College is the time where we find out who we are and where we want to be. My advice is to just take it one step at a time, and before you know it, you’ll be the best person you can be, without doubt and finally finding happiness.
