Lessons From College Me

This time every year, I find myself missing college.

I've been thinking lately about why that is. An easy conclusion is that I had a great college experience over all. But when I dive deeper into what made it such a great period of time, I think I can most easily summarize it as saying that it was a time of hope and growth. A time where it was ok to not know where you were going and what the full plan was. A time where it was ok, encouraged even, to try things out and see where you landed. A time where there was a safety net that allowed you to take risks without too much fear of failure. I've been thinking about how when we graduate, the immediate next step is full on adulting and figuring out how to survive. How to make a living. The experimentation phase is over. But does it have to be? Too often I think that our (very real) need for survival takes over and informs so many of our decisions. We can get trapped in the surviving instead of thriving. I feel like college Meryl was thriving. So I've been doing a deep dive into my memories to sort out what I can apply from my college years, to my life now. Obviously, I won't be able to take a time machine backwards. But it did make me realize that there is a lot that I can apply to my life now.

Follow the Fun

One of the most liberating things about getting to college was realizing I had the freedom to make my own schedule. To build my own life. No one was looking at my every move. It was a time when there was way more time and opportunity for fun. And I took full advantage. The fun was what led me towards the people who would become my friends. It's what led me to interesting new hobbies and interests that I had no idea I'd be into. It's what led me to always finding opportunities to try on new ways of being. In summary, fun is what led to me everything meaningful. I'm not saying getting a degree wasn't a worthy and worthwhile pursuit. It had it's benefits :) But I think the fun led me to much more. I think putting ourselves in an energetic state of play and fun helps to take down all the barriers and blocks we put up. I think when we follow the fun, we're following our intuition vs. our head. I'm learning that too much time in my head never leads me to where I want to be. So I'm going to focus more on following the fun, following what lights me up and what feels like a "yes" vs. letting my head decide.

Change is Inevitable

For some reason in college, it felt expected that change was going to be constant. New living situation, new dorm every year, new classes. It was a time filled with newness, which made the newness all seem… normal? It's like you couldn't overthink it because it was happening all the time. It was like waves in the ocean. You just had to take the ride. There was no using trying to fight gravity. As we get older, we become more risk adverse and more set in our ways. Change can be seen as a negative, and something that we have the ability to control and resist. The thing is that change hasn't changed lol. It's still the same. We just make up different stories about it. I don't want to be someone who resists change. I want to be someone who embraces change for what it is. Because what it is, is opportunity. It's opportunity for things to get even better than you can imagine. And when we try to resist change, it only make everything infinitely harder. I want to instead open myself up to what change can offer me that I couldn't have dreamed up on my own.

Do it your way

In college, we all had different paths we were following. Different majors, different paths of self exploration, etc. I was so wrapped up in my own life, I wasn't paying much attention to what anyone else was doing. It never really crossed my mind. I was in my own world, trying different things on for size. Figuring out who I was, and who I wanted to be. Once we leave college, we land in a path of sorts based on our chosen profession. It introduces us to a world of comparison, a world of keeping up with the jones's, of figuring out how we stack up and if we're doing it "right." We're thrust into survival mode. So we look to others for examples of how we should do things, how we should "be." I don't want to play that game anymore. I know that to thrive in my own life, in the way that I view thriving, I have got to do things my way. As a business owner I've been guilty of looking to others for the answers, and to be honest- I've never found the answers that sat right with me. That felt like… me. I'm someone with a very strong sense of self and intuition. Sometimes I let it get clouded. But it's only when I operate form that strong sense of self and from my inner knowing that I really find myself living authentically, and thriving. It doesn't matter what it looks like to anyone else, but me.  

Ok so I still really would love to take a time machine trip back to 2002-2006, and tell my college self how good she had it ;) To enjoy finding herself, and to having fun. But I know I can still bring back those pieces of me when I'm feeling lost out here adulting. I've got this ;)  

Xo