Except in this case. I just woke up from a terrible dream that I am interpreting into a lesson I learned from Skidmore. Let's start with the dream (if you don't want to hear about the dream I apologize but it's a bit important to my epiphany tonight):
It all started with me sending out text messages asking if anyone wanted to go out before school started. None of my friends that I usually go out with responded so I asked a couple of "irregulars." These people consisted of Hawaii friends, family, and friends that I met in California last year. I'm not really sure where this part of the dream took place but somehow we were all in the same area. Anyway, no one responded right away except my almost 16-year-old cousin. She gave me a pity text that stated, "Sure you can hang out with me. What kind of hanging out did you want to do?" I'm not really sure what that meant but I knew that if I hung out with her, I would be hanging out with 16-year-olds. I wasn't about to crash her party, plus I don't know her friends. Finally someone responded and I ended up hanging out with my friend Isaac from Hawaii, Jeremy from Oregon, and all of his friends from University of Redlands (which are the California friends I met last year that I mentioned before).
Somehow I'm all of a sudden at Skidmore and we're all in the same classes together. Our first class was in some room that doesn't exist but it had the same feeling as the ICC. This room, however, was underground and REALLY dirty. I can't even describe how disgusting it was. Anyway, we had class and we were supposed to go to the next class together but the group of people I was with ditched me like I was a high school dork trying to fit in with the cool kids. I looked at my schedule and saw that my next class was in the library. I heard someone say that it started in 15 seconds. I ran as fast as I could to the library. Skidmore in my dream was no where near as small as it actually is. So I get to the library, see class already starting, and try to find the room where I'm supposed to "check in" (what ever that means). I trip and fall all over tables, chairs, and people, get in trouble for causing a disturbance, and then get to class late. This is when I woke up in a panic that I missed my first day of class, only to realize I'm still in California.
So where is the lesson you may ask?? I'll tell you: All year I have been a part of FightClub. Multiple conflict coaches and friends have told me to be fearless because I let my fears paralyze me from doing what I want to do. Here's where my epiphany kicks in. As much as I want to be fearless, I don't think that it's right for me.
One of my classmates once said that learning begins where comfort ends. I left my life in comfy little Hawaii to fly 6,000+ miles to a small city in upstate New York. After taking four years to get comfortable in snowy little Skidmore, I'm on the move again to a school in Oregon, which I might add is 3,000+ miles away from any place I've ever called home.
Putting the two previous paragraphs together... If I were fearless, I would never be uncomfortable. If I were never uncomfortable, I would never learn. I put on a brave face and pretend like a big change is the best thing to happen in my life, when in reality, I have no idea what to expect, and that scares me. It scares me enough to wake me from a dream every night for a week around 5am, before I finally realize what I'm fighting and why I'm scared. Truth is, I have no idea what will happen in the next month, let alone the next two years of graduate school. I learned that not facing my fear of being uncomfortable leads to a path of misery for two years, only to be followed by a semester of going abroad, a semester of having no friends because they're all abroad while I've returned, and finally a year of comfort and fun. Well, I don't have four years at this school, so I have to figure out how to get comfortable before I graduate. In order to do that, I have to stop fighting my fear and start learning from my discomfort. I will not gravitate towards the group of Asians quietly sitting in the corner of the classroom. I will not change my moral beliefs to fit in with the loud fun-loving students who never study but still manage to get good grades. I will not hold onto the past because I'm uncomfortable with the present and the uncertainty of the future. I can't wait to see how this works out for me since I start classes on Saturday. I'm really nervous and yes, I'll admit scared. But if I wasn't, I would worry that I wasn't human. Next time I update you I'll probably be talking about school and all my struggles with it. Hopefully the dreams stop soon!! Until then... Laters
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment