I know exactly what all of you are thinking right now: I can't wait for Election Day to be over with! And some of you are already thinking, I can't wait for next weekend! and of course there's those overachievers who have already wrapped all of their Christmas presents saying I can't wait for New Years! I am all of the above. I am constantly looking for things to look forward to. For whatever reason, I have a really hard time focusing on the moment that I'm living in. It's totally healthy to need something to look forward to at all times, but I realized lately that I am not living in the moment anymore. I know how cliche this is beginning to sound...but just keep reading.
I am 20 years old which is considered mature to a 12 year old, but to my parents I'm still a child. I've waited my whole life to be this age: living on my own, going to college, making decent paychecks, and being free to do whatever I please. But still, I am always waiting for something better. I never noticed that it was a problem until recently when I discovered that students can get Amazon Prime free (spoiler alert!) for six months.
I don't know about you but there is nothing more exciting than coming home from class and seeing a package waiting for you at your doorstep. So I began to order myself something nice each week to be delivered on Wednesday or Thursday just to surprise myself. Anything from new shoes to phone cases and even a satin pillow case became items that I would wait all week to come home and find covered in bubble wrap and packing peanuts.
But soon it got to the point where even that wasn't enough to excite me. Not only did it put a large hole in my bank account, but it started to become a chore instead of something to look forward to. That's when I started to realize that maybe my problem was bigger and more serious than online shopping.
I realized that my problem was the fact that I'm always in a hurry; in a hurry for class to end, for my work shift to be over, for the weekend, for winter break, to graduate, to get married, and start a family.
Well...that escalated quickly.
It's great having all of these things to look forward to, but becoming obsessed with the idea of them and attempting to make time go by faster was driving me absolutely insane. In fact, it drove me so insane that I broke down and went into a freaky type of depression and I experienced a weird withdrawal of looking forward to things. I was no longer anxious for the weekend, I was the complete opposite: numb. I became numb to everything around me and found myself just going through the motions of life, not taking any time to enjoy it. Because of this, I stopped doing a lot of the things I loved. Reading and writing no longer interested me, I would rather nap for an hour than go to the gym, even hanging out with my friends felt like a chore. I had done a complete 180 without even realizing it.
There wasn't one specific moment when I realized what was wrong with me. I didn't have some intense realization in a dream telling me that I wasn't living the right way. I just got annoyed with not being happy with my life and took a minute to stop and re-evaluate myself.
I wrote down all the positive aspects of my life and realized that a lot of them were things that didn't even happen yet. I have my entire life to experience new things and waiting around to graduate college or get married is just a waste of time. I'm taking less credit hours this semester so I can take time to absorb the materials I am learning instead of rushing to get papers done every Sunday night. I'm spending more time with my family and engaging in deeper conversations with my friends that don't involve weekend gossip.
I'm making a conscious effort to stop comparing myself to everyone around me because I'm on my own path in life and, while it seems like others are succeeding much more than I am right now, my time will come too. I'm taking time to improve myself and I'm in no rush to do it.
