Stop mistaking independence with isolation

My main concern as a busier college student trying to balance my personal and professional is how my time is spent. The difficulty being so organized is you begin to look at things through the lens of what is going to be most efficient for you. For me this is when I take a step back and realize that by not going out on a Tuesday night because I’ve been going since 7 a.m. that morning is in my best interest.

“No one looks back and remembers the nights they had plenty of sleep” was a phrase I constantly heard in high school and even to this day. We might not remember the nights we got plenty of sleep but I sure do remember the days my friends we stressed beyond belief trying to cram for assignments while battling a hangover all while running on three hours of sleep.

This concept like many of my posts are to support the notion of balance, I’m convinced we need balance in our every day life to do our best. There are going to be nights when I need to dress up, go out, and dance around with my girl friends until the early morning. There are also going to be nights when I make myself a salad and sit down at my desk ready to embark on whatever big assignment is coming up.

I had completed my first semester of college with an average GPA and a seemingly great friend group. When I came back the next fall it was after losing my mother and

being scared about my own health as well. I realized that the friend group I had thought was so solid, the kind of people that had my back and understood me hadn’t sustained the change my life had.

Around this time was when I had decided that I needed to focus on me, I would get my priorities in order and focus on what I needed to get ahead for once. By doing this I was tipping the scale completely towards the other end, I was pushing people away because I though this reorganization was something I needed to do by myself. Just like anything else I eventually warmed up to letting people in again, it wasn’t easy or painless but most things worth having aren’t.

This year I feel confident I have the best understanding of integrating my work ethic with the need to know when to quit. Because of this my biggest advice to anyone in college would be, just because you think you need or deserve to be alone doesn’t mean you have to be. Chances are this is anything tiny voice in your head you’re going to have to learn to tune out, and you will. There’s independence and then there’s isolation, the difference is with the right support system you won’t feel like the bad guy for canceling plans in order to focus on yourself. You also won’t feel like you’re wasting time having fun if you could be using that time to be productive.