Lost on a subway

If there are only so many waking hours in a day, why not make the absolute most of every second? 

Now, imagine you’re on a subway. You’ve missed your stop on the way back home from Central Park.  So now you’re riding the C train all the way to the end of the line. As you’re sitting there, you look at the few people around you. Sonder. Did they grow up to be who they always wanted to be? Did they find true love? Have they found happiness? Looking through the eyes of an idealist, the answer would be “of course.” However, through the eyes of a realist, you would see that the answer involves beautiful and tragic variety. 

For instance, take the middle-aged woman with the laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. When she was our age, she fell deeply in love. Yet, like many relationships, the time they spent together eventually came to a close. She often reflects on the experience, and wonders if she had fully expressed her feelings, if they might have worked it out. She sometimes daydreams on the “what ifs” and the things that will never be. But, she looks back on the experience fondly, as it taught her to be confident, and realize her own beauty. She learned the darkness and pain of loss don’t last forever. So when you are out of your darkness, go find them, and know you are never alone. 

Take the young man sitting alone listening to music twirling a basketball in his hands. In his eyes he replays the moment he woke up, watching the sun as it rose, reflecting on the buildings of Manhattan, bathing the city in an orange glow. His breath is taken away by the beauty of the dawn. Time stands still as he takes life one minute at a time, not wasting a second looking back. He never wants to regret the words that he never got to say. Even as a teenager, he knows that he isn’t getting any younger and that the illusion of everlasting youth has captured his peers. They live in the present, with no clear vision of their future. They never spend the nights alone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t lonely. Contrarily, he lives with no regrets, looking to the future, beginning with the end in mind: always vulnerable and honest. In 10 years, don’t let yourself look back, afraid that it’s all just been wasted time, and remember to let yourself fall in love.

As you approach the final stop, you see a girl with dark hair and a black backpack standing up, holding into the metal railing. She’s deep in thought, listening to a playlist she made with songs she has attached to bittersweet memories, emotions impenitently playing across her face. Though she wonders if she will ever get what she is looking for, she knows that if she can’t have it now, she’ll wait. In her eyes is a fire, a burning determination to accomplish all that she dreams of, in no way afraid of the future.

As I watch her, I find myself looking into a mirror, viewing a fulfilled version of myself. All at once, the train stops, and I stand, taking one last look around at the people who had taught me so much without a single word. I step out of the train, my motivation restored. I vow to take advantage of every single moment that I am given. 

We each live a different life, yet many of us are in pursuit of the same experiences. As freshmen, we have our entire lives ahead of us to accomplish all that we yearn to achieve. If we are able to align our current realities with our desires for the future, then the next time we sit on the subway, we can be content with the knowledge that we are moving forward, not only to our next stop on the rail line, but also to the next steps in our journey. 

Mind of a Freshman is an Opinion column written by one or two first-year Stevens students to discuss life experiences during their time at Stevens, and other related subject matter.