So, today, I had an interesting conversation with my roommate and came to some startling realizations. I learned that I tend to lean heavily on expectations of me created by me and others. I also lean heavily on how I think everyone else views something. For example, after my parents tried to convince me many, many times to take a year off between high school and college, in order to work and save money and get a little older (I was 17), I completely ignored them. Not only did I want to go to college immediately, instead of waiting for the fall semester, I had to go to college two days after I graduated high school. I was 17, broke, and naive. However, hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, after these last almost 2 1/2 years, I wonder what the heck was I thinking?!? I hadn't.
First of all, BYU was the only school that I ever wanted to go to. I had grown up my entire life knowing that BYU was the most difficult LDS school to get into, and I thrive on competition. I had grown up knowing that my daddy went to BYU and that if he did it, then I could do it. I had grown up knowing BYU was a very cheap school and that college was expensive. I had grown up knowing BYU was pretty much all mormons, except for maybe 2 percent of the campus population. I had grown up knowing that a college education was important. I had grown up with the idea that you graduate high school, go to college and get married, and settle down and be happy. I was so wrong!
College competition is hard. In college you actually have to do this thing called studying. Who knew? My daddy didn't go to BYU until after he was married and had life experience. He didn't go to college at 17 and succeed. like he did. College is so expensive. I've been here almost 2 1/2 years and I am so broke it isn't even funny. I work and earn maybe 4000 each summer, but then go off to college and spend twice that much on everything. Having a college education is important, but it does not need to be completed before one turns 22. It just won't happen. Finishing college in 4 years is basically a fantasy that every high schooler is made to believe. Now I just laugh. After 2+ years I am so finished. Don't get me wrong, I want to graduate, and have a degree, but I am so burnt out! I am so excited that I have been given the opportunity to go abroad and travel for a while and then that my religion gives me the opportunity to go serve a mission for a year and a half. Because of these options, I have time to think and decide for sure what I really want to do. Just in the last year I've decided and rejected atleast 3 different majors: exercise science (for physical therapy); business (to consult with and improve businesses); and an American Sign Language major (for ASL interpretation). And in the last 2 weeks I've gotten interested in photography and culinary school.
Honestly, I'm done letting society tell me what I should be doing and when I should be doing it. I am only 19 years old, dang it! I don't need to be married. I don't need to breeze through college in 3 years, nonstop. I don't need to be stick thin. I don't need to be super in debt. I only need to be who I want to be. And thankfully, I have the best people on my side: my mom and dad; my siblings; and my Heavenly Father.
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