Sooo I know that technically, the first semester of college ended back in May, but I’ve basically been taking classes nonstop until the end of July so I am counting now as the “end of the first year” for me. And I wanted to write a blog post about my thoughts on how I’ve grown throughout the past year and the experiences/lessons I’ve learnt throughout this season of my life. It’s kinda crazy how much I went through in just 365 days; a year ago, I was doing the same summer camp that I’ve done for the past 15 years of my life, living in my sheltered Syosset bubble, and had an entire support crew of friends/family that I’ve known all my life right next to me. Flash-forward a year, and I am currently sitting by myself in an airplane traveling on an international flight after studying completely by myself in Korea. Needless to say, jumping from never traveling without my mom to suddenly going halfway across the world in a single summer all alone is such a drastic difference… But anyways, I just wanted to write down a few things I’ve personally come to learn throughout this year!

1. Life is all about balance. You probably already heard this before, but it’s probably the most IMPORTANT lesson that I believe every individual must grow to truly understand. And this includes almost everything, including the things we may even consider as “good” like self-improvement, new experiences, and even religion. You can’t constantly be forcing yourself on a road of strictly self-improvement or else you’ll burn yourself out; you can’t constantly be searching out for new experiences or you won’t have the opportunity to appreciate the familiar. Instead, we must have a healthy balance like improving yourself while also allowing yourself to eat that cookie every once in a while or having a moderate amount of new experiences while also spending some time at home. This balance is what maximizes our growth as a person. And one of the biggest realizations that I’ve had this year is learning that this rule of balance includes religion as well. Growing up, I’ve always learnt that there’s no such thing as “too much God” and that we should go all in for Jesus; there is no “lukewarm Christianity.” But I’ve come to the conclusion that even religion can be dangerous if not practiced in moderation. For example, Christianity often preaches to not care about physical possessions or worldly wealth and only focus on the heavenly things; however, simply just from practical life experience, I believe we must have some “rainy day” funds and make sure you can at least financially support you and your family. In other words, you must care to some extent about your worldly possessions, and while pastors may preach the opposite, they too must care about wealth. When I hear testimonies of pastors’ boasting how they can’t even afford to feed their own children because they “trust in God” to provide, I began to realize the dangers behind the mindset of going “all in for Jesus.” And unexpectedly, this “all-in” mentality leads many Christians to become closed minded to other people’s backgrounds and viewpoints. After all, if someone believes in their religion to the extent that they are perfectly okay with not being able to provide for their own kids, it makes sense that they’d rather hold this belief to the bitter end over admitting to an atheist they have a valid point. And this extreme faith drives many good people into the trap of solidifying their personal beliefs as a universal reality. I can’t tell you how many Christians I’ve come across where we are having a conversation about personal beliefs, but it is more of a they tell me “that’s an interesting thought, but here’s why you’re wrong.” Personally, I would much rather be a more moderate Christian: to be able to admit if I have incorrect stances, genuinely listen to outside viewpoints, and gain a more well-rounded understanding through respectful conversation.
2. Gratitude. Before coming to college, there was so much that I had never even considered before to be grateful about. I thought my family’s income was average, I never considered the power my American citizenship holds, I forgot how I had such amazing parents/family/friends who are rooting for me and genuinely want to see me as the best possible version of myself. Yes, all of these things are fairly obvious things to be grateful for at surface level, but it takes maturity and exposing yourself to the world around you to truly understand the level of gratitude behind these very basic things. I was recently traveling back to the U.S. from Korea with a friend who did not share an American passport, and so while I could travel using the original flight plan at an airport in Edinburgh, she wouldn’t be allowed in. While I only carried my American passport and boarding pass on my flights, she had a folder full of immigration documents, passports, green cards, visas. As an American, I had been completely oblivious to how other people across the world have so many barriers to free travel. Also, comparing my experiences in Mexico where I couldn’t even flush a toilet on my own without bringing a bucket of water inside with me, I took for granted my home in the U.S. with my super comfy bed and bathroom. And after a year of not having my home friends/family with me in college, and then seeing them smile when they see me, I’m realizing that I have grown up with so so much to be thankful for in this life. 
3. Don’t get attached. This kind of goes along with the “life is about balance” but I feel that this has been such an instrumental personal lesson for me that it deserves its own little section. When forming relationships with other people, we can either fully invest ourselves in them, minimally invest ourselves in them, or moderately do so. And throughout high school, I have always tended to fully invest myself into my friends in hopes that they would like me better. I would hand-write birthday cards and make presents for all of them, do my best to constantly text/talk/wave to them, try my best to make them smile, and pretty much become as good of a friend that I possibly could be. But there is nothing in this world that is really permanent, and I realized this in college; when all of the relationships that I have invested so much of my time and effort into disappeared in a snap. This really brought me to a low point in my life where I became really scared of investing myself fully into a “best friend” because in the back of my mind, I know that they will leave too. But then this mindset led me into the trap of only making superficial friendships instead of meaningful bonds that can last lifetimes. I was too scared to invest into deep relationships that I ended up more lonely than ever. So I learnt that you have to be careful with the people that you decide to commit yourselves into. You have to be conscious of the fact that they do not owe you anything, and that if they leave, then it is your responsibility to be able to handle it in a mature way. And this is done through judiciously deciding the people you get “attached” to. 
4. A good day is a day when you push yourself to your limits. I’ve come to realize that there are a variety of limits that we are capable of, physical limits, social limits, mental limits, emotional limits. And pushing yourself to each of these limits every single day is how you improve to become the best possible version of yourself. I’ll list examples of how to do each of these categories of limits below. Physical limits can be pushing yourself to failure on the last rep in the gym or sprinting until you are out of breath. Mental limits are seeing how much your brain can take: we can only learn so much in a given day, and sleeping at night is the only thing that we can do to completely reset and start the next day refreshed. So pushing yourself to your mental limit means learning as much as you are capable of for that single day. Social limits are when you engage yourself with the people around you to the best of your ability. As an introvert, I have a tough time socializing “too much” and have a cap on my social battery. Thus, every day, I think it’s important to push myself to those “social limits” and learn these social skills needed to form relationships with others. All of this nonsense on the internet about disappearing for a year and then coming back unrecognizable is bull. Sure, you may be able to improve yourself physically and mentally by disappearing, but social skills are just as important to develop as well. After all, humans are a social species and so we need to learn how to socialize and have meaningful conversations. Lastly, emotional limits are when we don’t shy away from necessary internal pain or trauma. This may sound weird, but it is true that once you really go through something that’s genuinely traumatic, then everything else doesn’t seem that bad in comparison. A lame example in my life is how I have currently been flying for three days straight and I have not had a single shower yet. This would be “bad” by a lot of people’s standards, but since I went to Mexico 2 months ago and went an entire week without showering or sleeping, I’m realizing that this is not too bad. In fact, I’m actually grateful right now because I have wifi and the computer to entertain me while in Mexico, I didn’t even have my phone. So pushing yourself to these emotional limits are what allows you to take more shit that happens in life.
5. Diversity and inclusion when forming deep/meaningful relationships is just not realistic. You hear it all the time: you should make friends with people of diverse backgrounds/ethnicities/incomes/beliefs/religions and become super close friends for life. And while this sounds good in theory because exposing yourself to the world’s diversity creates a well-rounded individual, you NEED similarities for deep relationships to truly work. Human nature simply drives us to associate with people who we share the most commonalities with. And while going out of your way to create diverse friendships is unquestionably a good thing to do, I think spending all your time doing that puts you at risk of missing the opportunities to form genuinely deep and strong bonds. I just went to the Princeton in Korea program where the seven of us were probably the most diverse group that you could possibly get; all of us had different citizenships, ethnicities, political views, religious backgrounds, etc. And while this was really great in maybe the first few weeks as we first got to know each other, the group dynamic quickly broke down as our dissimilarities began to show. And at the end of the trip, where did that lead us? In a bunch of arguments with people who were completely sick of each other with half of us not wanting to talk with each other at the end. In general, if you think about your best friends, more likely than not, they will share racial ethnicities, religious backgrounds, etc. And no matter what people say, I think that this is completely okay. Being able to form deep relationships is a huge part of life and I’d argue is so much more instrumental to having a fulfilling life than having superficial but diverse relationships.