I want everything I do this year to be intentional and have a purpose. I am the type of person that constantly tries to do everything all the time. I rarely take breaks, I rarely slow down, and that is why I get burned out so fast. I am learning how to love myself more and not be so hard on myself for the things I couldn't complete. I often volunteer to do more than I can handle because I love giving and I love helping out. Because my name is attached to it or to an organization, I want to do the very best that I can. Over the course of last semester, people now know my name because I am a hard worker and I love what I do. It's also a really amazing feeling to finally get recognized for your work and then feel like everything is slowly fitting into place like you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and everything is good.

I want this year to be the year when I feel like it is okay for me to say no. If I want to do something I will, but I will not overwork myself (or at least I will try not to). I have earned my place already, and I don't have anyone to prove anything to anyone. I've exceeded all of my family's expectations and even most of my friends. Something that is sad is that we live in a society that instead of being happy for one another, we're jealous and competitive. When I got my law school acceptance letter, I noticed the people around me started to change. They couldn't be happy for me; they were jealous and envious and I'm not quite sure why because it's not like they're even remotely interested in what I'm doing anyway. I can't even begin to tell you how many times last semester I heard "well at least you have a plan, Erica. You already know what you want to do. But the rest of us still have stuff to figure out. We have to take the GRE or the LSAT, we have to apply to grad schools or law schools because we graduate in May. You've already done everything so chill out".

First off, it's not about me having already done everything. You probably just read that sentence and probably think I'm dumb but hear me out here: I'm a planner, I make plans. I like to stay organized in my life because it helps me feel sane. So when I applied to law school I wanted to have a backup plan just in case I didn't get into the program that I wanted to. I know how some people feel about having backup plans, that by having one I am only preparing myself for failure. But that wasn't the case trust me. I just like to be prepared, sometimes overprepared but hey, that's better than not being prepared at all.

I would also like to take this time to mention that while all of my friends are graduating this May, I have to take an extra semester and will be graduating in December while finishing up my Capstone research and starting my law school classes. Graduating in May was my ideal plan for so long (because graduating in 4 years on time is ideal for everyone- but there is no set in stone timeline), but some things didn't work out and I had to take a leap of faith and now it's all working out for the better. I have two amazing opportunities this semester that I get to experience now and I wouldn't have been able to do them if I was to graduate "on time". This took a while for me to accept, but I'm pretty happy about all of it right now.

Everyone has a different timeline and a different journey so it's so hard to compare mine to others because we're all doing the same stuff as students. We need to quit comparing our lives to others because let's be honest- it's not great. We're all human beings and we should help one another, not bring each other down. So be intentional in your work, in what you do, in your friendships and relationships. Be purely intentional about who you are, and then the rest will fall into place.

INTENTIONAL (adjective): done on purpose; deliberate.