It is safe to assume that everyone and their mother were counting down the days until the last exam was handed in, the last research paper was electronically submitted to that curmudgeon of a professor they swear was born in the Jurassic period, and the last of their multitudinous suitcases were loaded in the back of the car right before blast-off. I, like the rest of the college-aged world, was totally on-board with all of this on the last day of school. All of these items to check off the to-do list before the summer of 2016 could officially begin. Before alarm clocks became obsolete and academic stress faded into oblivion. Before we all reunited with those friends we hadn’t seen since ‘Nam. And before we immersed ourselves in summer occupations, research positions and other intriguing jobs that we snagged earlier this spring.
It’s June 18 today, and the large majority of my peers, it seems, are off in big, bustling cities, making bank (or being unpaid) at well-known businesses that will surely offer them jobs once they bid their college days farewell. I, on the other hand, am back in the little town of Sewanee, Tennessee (no complaints there) where I will soon be beginning eight weeks of an independent research project into which I have put much of my heart, soul and time.
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While my project in this small mountain town is how I envisioned my ideal summer, I can’t help but compare my summer experiences with those of my friends who are out in LA, up in NYC, or down in Austin. After all, a Snapchat of my meal at the local Sonic does not measure up to a Snap of a meal at that chic vegan bistro in the city (though I’d totally love to try it someday). An Instagram of my day spent out at the lake seems to fall short of the picture of those people who have been traveling abroad and seeing the renowned sites in Europe, Africa or Asia.
But after several weeks of thinking about the stark differences between my summer and those of my friends, feeling blue, and sensing that I am not doing what I should be on the eve of my junior year at Washington and Lee University, I have come to a few conclusions.
Firstly, for everyone who thinks that their 2016 summer break does not even compare to those of their friends or to summer breaks of their past years: comparison sucks. We all know this to be true. Whether it’s comparing our academic capabilities, our appearances, our extracurricular accomplishments or something as trivial as how we spend our summer nights, judging our own self and our own time on this earth based on what others are doing leads to a dead-end and a sense of malaise that isn’t easily shaken. And no two summers are alike, even if we are in the same place and doing the same thing. Old memories are sweet, but they are not reality anymore. And embracing the present to its fullest extent allows for us to create and remember so many new memories.
Secondly, I believe that summer breaks are a time to not only expand horizons but also to immerse ourselves in activities that allow us to become more in touch with what we love doing and what our passions are. What we, ourselves, are doing, especially during one of the summers during our college careers, matters, if only because we love it. And odds are we’re currently coming to love however we’re spending your time. You may love the little tasks you’re assigned to carry out in a big company in a city, or you may hate your internship but love the people you’re meeting and the time you spend with them in the work room or out to dinner. You may love working in the little store or restaurant you keep going back to summer after summer. You may even see the changes that you yourself are making within your company, your community, or even in the course of your own life. How cool is that?
Finally, it’s OK if the “Summer 2016” that we all envisioned before it got into full swing isn’t what has unfurled up to this point. I, like many of you I would imagine, am a dreamer, and I tend to cling on to the ideal to strive for perfection. Sometimes, the world and the people within it offer me bits of what is perfect, in the form of a lovely day or the best night I swear I’ve ever had. But odds are, reality often doesn’t measure up to the dreams we’ve been holding in our hearts.
That’s life, and life is amazing, stressful, melancholy, exciting, and so many other things all at once. So I’m going to try not to worry about comparing my Midsummer Morning’s Reality to the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” about which Shakespeare wrote, and I’m going to make today count as much as I can.
