It’s the last thirty seconds of senior year, many find the overwhelming sense of nostalgia nauseating, a constant muggy feeling in the background of every final class, club meeting, or late-night side quest. When I breathe in though, my lungs are not burdened by this. I find myself fully embracing the next stage of my life. I think when this muggy feeling does come, it is accompanied by regret. Regret is a natural part of life, and it is easy to get lost in it. However, when reflecting on my time at Stevens, there is very little that I regret.
I don’t regret trying a ton of different things. At times I felt very spread thin, between four different campus jobs, various internships, and commitments to volunteerism. There are times when I wondered if my excessive commitments were worthwhile, and now I can confidently say that most of them taught me valuable lessons in life. Even my most negative experiences taught me how to professionally deal with difficult bosses, how to navigate the excessive social hierarchy and sentiments of conformism within Greek life, as well as how to quite literally stand on business and defend my beliefs and what is right within intense, organized structures and bureaucracy. Some of my most difficult experiences to navigate during college were some of the most important. I’ve learned how to sit in discomfort and how to work with it instead of avoiding negative feelings.
I don’t regret all of the relationships I have made at Stevens. We all make friends and lose them, fall into love with people and back out again. We have people who are only in our lives for a defined window, and we have friends who stay the mile. I do not regret any of the connections I have made at Stevens, because every single one of them has taught me about life and people. It is easy to say, “I wish I had never met so and so,” but we rarely reflect on the lessons we learn from situations that have ended poorly. I am now a much better judge of character, I am intentional with the people I let into my life, and it is far easier to assess red flags as a seasoned 22-year-old than a bright-eyed 18-year-old who desperately wanted to see the good in everyone.
Most importantly, I do not regret speaking my mind. There have been times in college when I have had to call out discrimination, harmful ideology, and systemic structures. I am the annoying woke friend — the one who makes situations difficult. What is happening in the world right now is not normal, despite how much we try to ignore it and hide behind the idea of politics being a “difference of opinion that we must respect.” I do not regret standing against the rampant acts of discrimination that are championed by the current administration, and subsequently by a large portion of the student body on this campus. I am not afraid to call people out, and I do not regret the countless times I have had to do it when others wish to remain silent to keep the peace. It’s scary and uncomfortable, don’t get me wrong, but I would rather be slightly uncomfortable now than extremely uncomfortable thirty years down the line when my kids ask me what I did during this period of democratic backslide. Nothing would make me more uncomfortable than to have to say that I “peacefully coexisted” with those who support the acts of this administration.
That’s not to say that there is anything I don’t regret, perhaps I will get into that in a later piece, but I always ask myself, “If I could push a button right now to reverse [blank decision], would I do it?” Most of the time, the answer is no.
