1. Let’s face it: at 18, most people are not
going to know what they want to do or to get out of life.
Give yourself a break and choose a school or a major at that school in
something you are interested in at the time and give yourself room to change. You probably will. After all, as Pedro Arrupe said, “the minute
you cease to change, you cease to live.”
People at 40 are making entire career changes so chill out and relax
your stress for it is nothing but a detour.
You will get to where you are going and stress won’t help you.
2. You
have allies everywhere. Literally, all
over the world. Find them. Freshman year is hard: Do not despair.
3. Unlimit
yourself from the beginning. Never say “I
cannot afford school x,” I am not smart enough for school y.” You can do whatever the hell you want. There are grants and scholarships for people
like you. Find a school that will accept
you for what you are on paper and as a human in the flesh.
4. It’s
odd discovering where your parents are wrong and have led you astray. You don’t have to listen to them. They are not you. Only you are you and your choice is your choice, damnit.
5. The
most important thing I learned after first term of college was to juggle like a
clown and I taught myself. This one’s up
to your interpretation.
6. Ultimately,
college, as in all things, is merely what you make it and someone who earns
your same degree is not the same as you.
You are an individual and no one has gone to the same schools that you
have gone to in your life in the same order that you have gone through
them. And still, if someone has been in
school with you for an entire life: nobody can see what you can see the way you
see it. You graduate from the University
of You, in any event. The name of a school is merely an umbrella
term to prove your endeavors’ legitimacy.
7. If
you are unsatisfied, you always have the power to change your
circumstances. This is Chaplin: “You’re
life can be a wonderful adventure.” If
you let it.
8. The
odd thing about places is that it doesn’t really matter where you are in the
world—what matters is how that place makes you feel, if you have the room to grow there, and if you can be
yourself at this place.
9. Steve
Jobs: You can’t connect the dots going forward—only when you look back does the
chronology of your life make more sense.
10. You
are confronted with a challenge that is both absurd and simple: freedom. You can do whatever you want wherever you
want. You wanna go to India for
service? Do that. You wanna go to Boston College for psychology
and theater? Do that. What’s stopping you? Seriously- what is it? I’m curious.
Whatever you are passionate in right now—do that. Do the one thing that gives you energy when
you haven’t eaten in 10 hours and your low on sleep. That thing that lifts you up once you’ve
forgotten the idea of light. For Christ sake-
do that thing. And if you haven’t found
that thing yet, then experiment like a mad man and search for it everywhere and
in everything. Do that. You and the planet will have been better for
it.
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