It is high school graduation, and you and your classmates throw your caps into the air, a unified, joyful toast to the approaching 'best four years of our lives!' The summer is filled with anticipation, dread, ecstasy about the impending next state of life filled with utter freedom, interesting courses, new and fascinating people, and endless partying. My younger self reminded me that I better 'take full advantage' of these last four years of my official youth, and reap every last benefit from my opportunities.
Since arriving on campus, I have been asked the question 'are you having the best time?' at least 28 times and I am only halfway through my first semester of college. This article is an ode to those inquirers, who so ravenously seek the validation and reassurance that I am, in fact, having the best time of my life.
I would say that I am having an astounding, eye-opening experience that has changed me in so many ways. Still, being asked this question gives me cold sweats and trembling hands; I avert the subject because what if my experience does not match up to the ideal one? Am I even living up to my own expectation that I maintained throughout high school?
It is completely normal to not have an astounding experience right off the bat since there is still a transitional component during the first few months of school. For so many people, there is the constant anticipation and waiting for the commencement of the best time of life. Society taught us throughout our teenage high school years to believe that university is the beacon of hope and the reward of adolescence; it is where we will truly discover our passions, make long term friendships, and enjoy the final run of life without needing to tackle adult responsibility.
It is safe to say that as I slogged through practice ACT tests, hours of volunteer work, and maintaining a constant friendship with my college counselor, I trusted that university would make it all worth it. The freedom! The excitement! The unfamiliarity! There wasn't a doubt I would do everything during high school to ensure I was able to have the best years of life in university.
What no one told me is that it is all an inferiority complex. When someone says nonchalantly, "college was the best time of my life; it made me who I am today", it is hard to look beyond that innocent statement and view the underlying motive. It is essentially self-justification, telling other people that you had the best time and you did and saw and experienced everything that you were supposed to; if everyone else is having the time of their life, you better be having it too.
Here is the thing -- I do not believe that I will have the best four years of my life. This is not to discredit the fact that I will look back on these years and say that they were amazing and life changing, because anything I do is life changing. I choose to look at the entirety of my life as the best years of my life, because the best time is always now. I prefer to think that if I do not have the best four years of my entire life during this small window, it does not mean that I have failed to measure up to preconceived ideas of society.
So much energy and faith is invested in doing everything one possibly can during university to achieve that enlightenment feeling. Yet, I often feel compelled to stop and remind myself that if I am not in every single club, taking every single class, meeting as many people as possible, fully enjoying every single thing I am doing on a daily basis, then it is ok. I will be just as qualified to move onto the next chapter of my life as the rest of my classmates, and the years after college will be just as phenomenal.
