It’s been a little bit since I just finished my first week of school of my junior year at American University. 

I came to school on a Sunday evening and started to unpack everything. I wanted to spend as much time at home as I could. There’s never enough time with family really. I was feeling really nervous. I was coming off the last couple weeks of summer feeling really broken and lost. I just lost a big scholarship that I was depending on to be financially independent from my parents this semester. I lost a career path that I thought I had wanted since 7th grade. I was really really lost. 

On the other hand, I had gotten an internship that I had been waiting for all summer and I was feeling hopeful for the next semester. There are obviously things that are most definitely out of my hands, but my happiness and how I react to things are all within my control. 

There are always going to be things that change your idea of what you’re life it supposed to be. I think the best way to mitigate that is to live every day with the motivation to find that purpose. When you’re open minded to find your purpose you just see more things that you wouldn’t otherwise notice. 

I think it’s really easy to find the negative things about our lives, but it takes a lot of energy to notice the good things. I have really good professors this semester. I have the same roommate as last year so I’m coming in knowing I don’t need to stress about my housing situation. I am coming back to school with an established group of friends. Now, I am a complainer but there’s nothing good that comes from just complaining about how tired I am, how lonely I am, how bitter I am if I am doing nothing to fix that. It’s easy to be stagnant, but you aren’t growing. In the military they always tell you to never march backwards. When you make a mistake even by a little bit you need to turn around FULL 180 and move forward from there, you never regress. Always move forward. It will take more work, but you need to move forward to grow. 

Life is hard, but you can do it.

JLee