Everything is new and exciting as you walk through the doors of your home for the next four years. You're on your own and have the freedom to do whatever the heck you want. Want to stay up until 4 am watching all of season 1 on Netflix? Do it. Want to go running around campus? Ok. In the mood to party on a Tuesday night? Why not. Going to save all your work for 1 am and hate yourself all night and in the morning? Probably. Freshman year is the year that you get to let it all out. Make a few mistakes, a few great memories, and a few great friends. Then it all hits you. It’s sophomore year, you need to declare a major, find out what you want to do, lose a few friends that no longer belong in your life, you’re still down to party, but now it all gets a little tiring. You still crave a good night out, but you crave a day to just sit in bed and relax even more. It’s the year you start realizing you need balance. The year you start working towards it.

Sophomore year is the year you stop chasing people, and start living for you.

Balance: To keep or put (something) in a steady position so that it does not fall. (Thank you google.com.) I chose this definition because it seems fitting. We’re balancing a whole grocery list of things, and one wrong move seems like you, and everything else is going to go toppling down to the ground. It may seem impossible right now to have a lovely little balance of everything in our life. We’ll get there; we just need to master the art. And now is the time to do it, because life isn’t getting any easier. (At least it doesn’t seem that way.) If we get it down now, we’ll be thanking ourselves later.

I can’t tell you what balance is. One, because I don’t think I have it. And more so because I think my version of balance and yours will differ. We have different goals. We’re different people. I can tell you what balance is not, however.

Balance is not sitting in your bed looking up at the ceiling, gasping for a deep and satisfying breath that never seems to fill your lungs enough. Balance is not sitting at your desk staring at a computer screen, unable to focus because there are 507 different things on your mind. Balance is not walking into a room and feeling like the room is consuming you, that the walls are collapsing in. Balance is not twisting the ring on your right hand. Balance is not speaking with a shaky voice because of the lump that’s made a home in your throat.

I hope that we can all find a little bit of balance. That when you’re sitting in bed at night staring at the ceiling, you feel satisfied. When you breathe in you feel your lungs expand, and you’re finally relaxed. I hope when you close your eyes and think about your life you’re happy with the path you’re on, the people there, and the choices you’re making.