It's a time of transition for a lot of people. Whether temporary or permanent, changes come at the beginning of summer. I was talking to one of my friends a few days ago who initially came in as a 2012 but will be graduating later. He said that as he saw all his friends graduating, he couldn't help but think of "what could have been."
I remember telling him that we shouldn't focus on "what could have been" but rather on "what can be and is yet to come." And then I started wondering whether I follow that line of reasoning myself. Oftentimes, I play a game of "let's fiddle around with variables" in my head. It's something fun to do when you're bored and you're playing entirely for amusement purposes (ie. not about anything serious). But I know it's dangerous to wander in this realm for too long or to delve too deep. By playing this game, I often manage to discourage myself. So I asked myself why I play this game. Part of it is probably wishful thinking, but I think the more subtle, but serious, reason is that it's easier than just trying to work with what I've got in the present. It's so much easier for me to say, "well if ____ had gone better in the past, then the current situation would be taken care of," and just ignore the fact that most of the time, I can take steps to work with what I've got.
So as we all go into summer- whether we're excited about how things wrapped up, just relieved it's all over, or frustrated with some aspect of this past semester- I'm hoping that we can learn to focus on the present and not too much on the past. (Please feel free to continually challenge me to do this ;) ).
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