Toss a penny in a fountain, blow out birthday candles, or pick a fallen eyelash from your cheek and make a wish. Think hard, and wish for what you most desire; that’s what my family always told me. Though my family is quite superstitious, and there’s no guarantee that these wishes will come true, I always make them anyway, even now at 19 years old. It doesn’t hurt, and who knows what might happen. I grew up believing in magic—Santa Claus and the Toothfairy were very real to me—so, of course, I believed in wishes. Every Disney movie that I grew up on was threaded with magic, meaning that my beliefs in an enchanted world were always reinforced. When I would look into a water fountain and see hundreds of pennies, I would try to guess which wish each penny represented. Everyone’s wishes must be vastly different, yet I always believed that they each evoke the same desire: happiness.
Happiness, I’d imagine, is everyone’s main goal for life. This is true for me, at least. I honestly have no idea what my life will look like 20 years from now, but I hope and pray that I’m happy. Easy days are all I can dream for, with limited worries and anxieties. But that’s not life, is it? Life is filled with tons of hard decisions and plot twists that go against everything we’ve been preparing for. There’s a lot of uncertainty and stress that can be truly painful at times. Eternal happiness on Earth is, unfortunately, unattainable. With all of the good times come the bad, and everything in between. If life was easy, there would be no growth; we wouldn’t have a reason to develop or change. It is through the challenges of adversity that we are able to learn.
There are parts of life that might seem bleak and unappealing. Sometimes we have to complete tasks that we’re downright uninterested in, like homework or chores, but they’re important in order to move forward. Even the worst parts of life are necessary, and this is something that we always have to remember. Though fleeting, happiness is attainable, even if we have to look extra hard in order to find it.
Keep this concept in mind throughout your return to school from spring break. A week off is a blessing, and so rejuvenating, yet spring break always leaves me wanting more. It’s a taste of the summer, when the weather’s nice and we’re off for a much longer period of time. A summer mindset means that school is nowhere to be found, making it really hard to get back on track.
The rest of the semester might feel like one of life’s many rough patches that we have to get through in order to reach happiness. The summer is definitely more appealing than the mounds of schoolwork that we are currently faced with, but if you try hard enough you’ll be able to focus on the happiness that exists throughout the semester. For me, grabbing lunch with friends, finally understanding difficult course material, and meeting new people are all reasons to smile, even during stressful times. I hope that the rest of the semester is filled with whatever brings you the most happiness!
Second-Year Freshman is an Opinion column used to explore the unique experiences of Sophomore students who studied remotely their freshman year during the coronavirus pandemic, and are now experiencing campus life for the first time during the 2021-2022 academic year.
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