College Life 101

These are some reasons why college life sucks.

A little preface:

About two weeks ago, it was fast sunday and it was the funniest testimony meeting ever. Fast and testimony meetings are great and hard at the same time, because it gets to the point where you have to learn to put your natural man aside and tell your stomach to shut up because you will eventually feed it.
Well, it was a funny meeting because all the testimonies were linked. You know how sometimes someone will share their testimony about gratitude or something and then all of a sudden, everyone realizes that they, too, have a testimony about gratitude? The Spirit works in wonderful ways.
This week, the reoccurring theme was the fact that it'd been a hard week. I was feeling the same way; I'd had like three midterms that week, and they weren't Book of Mormon midterms (even though those  BoM tests had questions like --as a former roommate put it-- "What's Nephi's toe's circumference?). And, I'd been experiencing a case of that "what am I really doing with my life" feeling that apparently everyone and their rent-a-puppy dog feel while they're at BYU.

It's hard not to get discouraged while living among such talented people. Before coming here, we all thought we were pretty good, contributing citizens. Got good grades, pretty talented in other areas, and then... people who are just like us congregate in one city. Someone will always be better than you at baking those delicious cookies, or playing that super cute Tangled song on the piano (just go sit in the Terrace for five minutes and you'll know it), or getting A's on every single o-chem test (I hate you. not really, but come on.) And the more I thought of it, I realized there's a few reasons why college life kinda stinks.

1. You just wanna be rich already and all the years of school ahead make it seem like the impossible, most unreachable dream.

And you think about it very time you go to the grocery store and get your $2.50, 30 pack of Top Ramen.

2. Roommate problems.

I am envious of all the people that room with someone random and everything works out perfectly. I've been there once. But the rest of the time, there's all those little things, without being OCD, that bug us. And I know what you're thinking, "Girl, then just room with your freakin friends. Then you won't have problems." Wrong. When you're a girl, rooming with your best friend isn't always the best idea. For the friendship's sake.

3. There's all these other things you wanna do but you have to study

Let's be honest. Handling a social life and balancing school is hard. #firstworldprobs



Then, you start thinking about the things you're whining about. And realize how stupid you are to whine about them in the first place. Even the hashtag #firstworldprobs kinda nauseates you.

Remember, whatever your situation is, there is always someone who's having a harder time than you are. And also remember, trials are relative. What may seem like a huge deal to you won't seem like a huge deal to someone else, and vice versa. You should be considerate of everyone. Like our good friend Dieter Uchtdorf said, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you." And along those lines, don't judge me because I have different trials than you. Whatever I'm going through is a big deal to me, and they're trials that are designed specifically to test me and make me (hopefully!) a better person.

Let's face it, our 20s are going to be difficult because of all the decisions we have to make. And it is a big deal. But it's not the end of the world. Everyone older than us already went through it and survived it. If they're ok, we'll be ok too. We might get super self-absorbed every once in a while, but what we must realize is, the world keeps moving, with our without us.
  "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."