For most, college can be a total “figure it out yourself” experience. You no longer have the luxury of getting step-by-step directions ceremoniously repeated to you or the ease of following the crowd, or even your friends, because everyone is going in different directions. You inherit all of the freedom you ever dreamed of, along with all of the stress and worry that plagues your nightmares.
College is a place where you feel the full weight of every decision on your shoulders. Many tasks that your parents assumed responsibility for, like keeping track of payments or deciding what’s for dinner, now falls onto your own ever growing to-do list. From deciding whether to skip class in favor of studying for another to not voicing your opinion out of fear of rejection, there’s a whole new world of “what if”s and not enough instructions to come with it.
At least, that’s what it feels like.
The truth is we have all of the resources we need. If you look for help, it will be there. Trying to do everything alone, while a noble feat, is simply unnecessary.
So why are there so many viral memes and tweets about being clueless in college? Maybe second-guessing yourself is easier than making a real decision. The moment you have to weigh in the pros and cons makes you accept all responsibility for the outcomes of your choice. That’s a scary thought, but it’s a scary thought for anybody. Asking your friends and family for advice might be helpful but you can’t base all of your life decisions on what works for other people, no matter how much you love and admire them.
It’s gotta be about what’s right for you.
For conquering all of the course-related questions bouncing around in our heads, we have advisers, professors, department heads, classmates, and TAs. For answering our doubts about friendship, relationship, or financial decisions, there’s a divide. We have ourselves, our gut feeling, but we tend to seek out the advice of others. While you can benefit immensely from gaining a new perspective, you can also become accustomed to depending on other people’s opinions to validate your own.
That is the moment you delegate your control over your life to others.
It’s dangerously easy to forget to listen to our gut when we’re too busy taking notice of someone else’s. When someone we think highly of attacks or criticizes our choices, we tend to give in to their reasoning rather than to our own. We forget to defend ourselves.
We second-guess ourselves and we shouldn’t.
Just because we are unsure of ourselves doesn’t mean the person giving us advice has all of the answers. You are bound to make mistakes regardless of whose gut you’re following so why not follow your own?
Get comfortable with the idea that you don’t need to get everything right the first time around. You can ask yourself later where you went wrong and grow from the experience. Being aware of your flaws and mistakes gives you the power to correct them and develop better behavior and decision-making skills for the future.
Why wouldn’t you want to experience life and all its ups and downs for yourself, through your own eyes, rather than borrowing someone else’s vision?
Asking for help is a decision in itself but taking a leap of faith and falling is okay too.
As long as you’re trying to be better and open to making changes when you need to, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be confident in your decisions and potential mistakes.
