I always need to be doing something productive. I cannot stand to waste my time doing absolutely nothing. Of course, I procrastinate. I mean who doesn’t? But, that is not what I am talking about right now.

I like to keep myself positively occupied to constantly be moving forward. In high school, I tried to tack on as many extracurriculars as I possibly could to ensure that I always had something to do - something to keep me busy, something to guarantee that I would constantly be learning something. Then I got to college, and I decided to cut back on the amount of activities I would be a part of outside of academics. My plan was to not overwhelm myself with too many things while transitioning into college and living so far away from home. I told myself that as I became more comfortable with the college lifestyle, I would start getting more involved. And I did, but that all happened throughout my second semester.

During my first semester, I was focusing on schoolwork and getting myself acquainted with living in a fast-paced city with people I had never met before. To some, this might not seem like a great accomplishment, but to me this was something I needed time to get used to. I was paying attention to my academics, getting adjusted to a newfound independence and was having an amazing time with it all. I was learning so much about my major, my school, and just myself in general. In other words, I was not stagnant. Even though I was not taking always a part of the plethora of activities on and off campus, I was still learning and experiencing self-progression.

After my first semester, I felt as if I had a strong enough transitional period, so I decided to branch out into other things. I became part of an amazing club on campus: LIME, short for Laugh, Inspire, Motivate and Encourage. This club focuses on guiding girls from inner-city high schools. I even received an innovative research opportunity, something I did not expect as just a freshman. I was so excited about everything. It was then more than ever that I felt like I really had it all together, and I enjoyed that feeling so much. Slowly as the semester went on, I kept myself busy with studying, LIME, and research, but for some reason I felt as if I had hit a plateau; I felt as if I should and could be doing more. Quite honestly though, there just were not enough hours in the day for me to possibly do another thing. But of course, being the huge self-critic I am, I did not realize it at the time. I started comparing myself to young entrepreneurs and innovators who accomplished such brilliant things at such a young age. Here I was at nineteen, feeling as if I was never going to amount to anything. I absolutely hated this unwanted stagnancy; I despised the feeling of not moving forward. I felt as if I was just stuck in one place.

Naturally, this resulted to me crying over the phone to my parents ranting to them about my idle situation and apologizing for not being someone amazing. They calmed me down to little sniffles and explained to me that I was not being reasonable with my thinking. “You can’t climb a thousand steps with one jump; you can’t fly to the moon in just a couple hours,” they pressingly stated.

And my parents were completely right. My parents' words made me realize that successful beings are not magically made overnight. Everything takes time and a whole lot of motivation and understanding.

After our conversation ended, I sat on my bed and re-evaluated my entire first year of college. I remembered my first day moving to Boston, getting situated with living more than three thousand miles away from home. That is a feat in itself. I remembered crumbling under the workload and pressure of classes, but I conquered. I remembered going out and seeking different opportunities that came my way, and as nerve-wracking as it was at first, I still did it. Even though, I felt as if I was not moving forward all the time, I was still making progress throughout the year. So, I was not actually stagnant; I just could not see all of the little advancements I made.

This unwanted stagnancy was not actually stagnancy. It was just me being too harsh on myself. I am sure so many people either currently feel this way or have felt this way, and that is totally okay. I think it just means you understand that you want to pursue something meaningful for yourself. Just remember to not look for the immediate results and to evaluate everything as a whole; you might just surprise yourself with everything you have accomplished.