Spring Cleaning: Ins and Outs
Written by Francesca Tero
“Life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once,” is a quote from Taylor Swift’s 2022 NYU commencement speech. I reflect on this quote a lot these days. Maybe more so because I am graduating from college this year and have a lot of life decisions and major changes around the corner. When I think about who I was 4 years ago and the person I am today, I look the same and mostly feel the same. However, I think a lot differently.
My college experience felt like always juggling 20 different things at once and trying to excel at all of them. Although I managed, this wasn’t the best for my mental health and sometimes for my social wellbeing. It caused me to miss a lot of things and isolate myself. Some of that was for the better, but I also am a human and think about what if it wasn’t. My freshman self would see that as a complete failure to do something that everyone does in college: make a ton of friends. However, my senior self is proud to have strong friendships that will last a lifetime, even if they are not as abundant as I once thought they should be. And that is completely okay, because trying to force friendships that just don’t work or hold onto things that you outgrew keeps you from growing. Hence, Taylor Swift’s wise words.
Thus, my first set of “Ins and Outs”:
- In: Being intentional about the company that you keep + low-maintenance friendships
- Out: FOMO + codependency
Let me elaborate. There isn’t anything wrong with doing everything with friends, especially because college presents the unique ability to do so. You live so close to your friends, and everything feels within reach for a certain amount of time. However, there is a delicate balance to it. I think the most important thing is learning how to spend time with yourself and enjoy your own company. When you aren’t depending on anyone to be with you, you end up engaging with the things you love most. Further, when you learn not to get FOMO, you also end up choosing where you go and who you spend time with more intentionally. Everything becomes more on your own terms. This is how you find out who you really are in my opinion.
This is not to say you should do everything independently, because there is innumerable value in finding the right social circle. It just means that every once in a while, you should pursue things alone. Not because anyone told you to, but because you want to. It could lead to meeting more people who could add value to your life in ways you didn’t expect. A personal example: I really hate group work, and in my last semester, I’m taking a lot of classes that challenge me to be more open to it. Through this process of challenging myself to be more social and collaborative, I’ve made a really good friend. I challenged myself not to rely on people I already knew, but I branched out, and it worked out for the better.
This leads me into my second set of In’s and Out’s that are inspired by Olympic skier Eileen Gu. When asked about how she continues to succeed despite facing pressure, she responded, “The power of sport is unparalleled because it is evidence over affirmation.” I’m not an athlete myself, but I think everyone can benefit from this. She further mentions that instead of telling yourself you can do it, you just go ahead and do it. And keep doing it, time and time again, whatever that looks like for you. I wasted so much time doubting myself that it took away from some of my greatest achievements. I spent more time thinking about attributing my successes to everything except the fact that I put in the work for it. And yes, this is only something I can realize in hindsight, but it’s still a valuable insight for the future.
But going back to the quote, doubting yourself makes it seem like you need to reaffirm yourself and say positive things to yourself/manifest the impossible, to build yourself back up. This didn’t really work for me, and it actually proved to be very mentally taxing. What did work was just doing what I was afraid of, despite the fact that I was scared. The act of doing something anyway IS the evidence of capability. While you can’t prove affirmations, you can create evidence. Not to do things for the approval of others, but to prove to yourself that you can show up for yourself.
My second set:
- In: Doing something consistently, even if, but especially if you’re scared
- Out: Baseless, generic affirmations
Lastly, I want to end by elaborating on how I feel like I’ve changed in the way I think. This is the most valuable thing to me throughout my experience in college. I believe that in the face of a rise in opinions that devalue college and higher education, I argue that becoming a better thinker and problem solver, being exposed to different perspectives, and seeing a goal through are invaluable aspects of pursuing a degree. In simpler terms, college forces you to grow. It forces you to commit to a 4-year or however long program and see it through to the end. Along that path, there are going to be many times when you want to give up. This is because you get challenged by things that seem insurmountable. Not because they actually are, but just because they are new to you.
In these moments of uncertainty, the first instinct is to want to run. However, yet another Olympian, this time figure skater Alysa Liu, sees it differently. She said, “I love struggling, actually. It makes me feel alive.” Again, I’m not an athlete, but this directly translates to academic, career, and even recreational endeavors as well. Many people, including myself, put off trying a new hobby because they’re afraid of judgment and don’t want to be bad at it. Or if you do poorly the first time, many people get stuck in a fixed-mindset that they can never get better. They put themselves in a determined box of being bad at the thing. For me, it’s math. Slowly but surely, I’m unpacking myself out of that box. Being in STEM has forced me to confront that. I don’t have to be a mathematician, but that doesn’t mean I have to live my whole life saying I’m bad at it either.
However, most of the value in anything comes from the learning and struggling stage. This quote embodies the growth mindset in that there is always an opportunity to improve. Without struggle, everyone would stay in the same place. Where is the fun in that? Alysa said it perfectly. To be human is to struggle.
On that note, I want to mention that it’s important to give yourself grace in these moments, too. If college, or a sport, or a given career path were that easy, everyone would be doing it. But I understand it can be difficult to give yourself grace, so a trusted friend or family member you can turn to for support works great as well. It’s so easy to talk down on yourself and your abilities when it comes to struggling. Sometimes, we need someone to dig us out of that hole. It’s important to figure out who that support circle is, which goes back to my first set of Ins and Outs.
My last set:
- In: Growth-mindsets + Embracing the struggle (it’s for the plot!!)
- Out: Fixed-mindsets + Being mean to yourself when you don’t get it the first time
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