Photography by Cat White
If you’re reading this, please learn from my “should-haves”.
As I’ve started my last year of college, I’ve begun to look retrospectively at my time here. College is a very set period of my life, marking a very distinct change in the place that I live and the people that I am surrounded by. This makes it quite easy for me to segment this part of my life for analysis, tally my successes and mistakes, and run whatever informal regressions to try to understand how much I’ve grown as a person. This analysis, in turn, has given me plenty of opportunities to think of things that I regret having done or not done.
And I think that is very healthy! I think that it is weird to go around and actively believe that there was nothing that you could have done better.
So, here is a non-exhaustive list of things that I perhaps would’ve done differently if I got a second chance at it all.
1. I wish I hadn’t stressed out over all of the “social climb-ey” stuff. Most of it is noise and is predominantly rooted in factors that are out of my control. Much easier said than done when you’re surrounded by people that value particular social metrics, but it would have saved me a lot of brainspace if I had just taken half a step back to realize your social standing as a 20-year-old college student is stupid.
2. I wish I went out for more things, because I’m awesome and I deserve it. And, I don’t just mean clubs. I mean tried to meet more people, tried to learn new hobbies, whatever, whatever. Got involved with groups of interesting people that challenged some of the homogeneity that I felt like I would strive for in order to fit in.
3. I wish I drank a little less… A lot of my drinking, especially in the beginning, was because I wanted to be more confident. However, I need to note that I don’t really regret going out as much, except for that one time when I promptly failed a test the next morning. I just regret maybe the “using-alcohol-as-a-crutch” aspect.
4. I wish I wore my retainer with some regularity, because my teeth are shifting.
5. I wish I tried to learn as much as I could from all of the classes that I took. My favorite classes have ended up being the ones that I actually felt I gained from. I also really wish I took a language class.
6. I wish I went to my friend’s performance that night during my second year. I didn’t really have a good excuse, I just didn’t have anyone to go with. I regret it to this day, and it’s been 2 years, so that’s awesome.
7. I wish I held less grudges against people that I ultimately valued a lot as friends. I would put these new friends that I made on pedestals, assume that they could do no wrong, and then feel so betrayed when they ultimately turned out to be human beings. These grudges, fueled by anger and a little bit of hurt, really built up and wore me down. I wish I just learned to take people as who they have the capacity to be. I am so far from perfect, and it is quite hypocritical to expect anyone else not to be.
8. And finally, most importantly, I wish I could say that at every crossroads, I prioritized being kind above all. There were plenty of moments where I slipped up, got tunnel vision, and lost sight of my impact on the people around me. It takes energy to be kind, and the energy that we put into everything in life comes out of one pool. So when I was stressed, I tended to use up all my energy for other self-oriented things: my schoolwork, career stuff, my own social standing, blah blah. I never failed to surprise myself with how selfish I was capable of being. If only I knew how much I wish I could go back now and just save some of that energy to always be kind– I would have taken many lower letter grades to have more time to be a fully present friend.
I feel like this sounds depressing. But, it is currently only November, and this is a particularly constructive exercise for me. I have a whole year left (rounding up), and putting this list into words is hopefully going to force some level of reflection into my last year before it really is too late, and I find myself moving onto the next chapter of my life.
Carmen M., University of Virginia
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