College Reflections

This week is a crazy week for me. I’m writing this blog post while my students take their final exam for “Intro to Christian Thought.”(Yaaay multitasking). I literally just finished grading their final papers, and now I will have to grade their exams and submit final grades. In case that pretext wasn’t enough, I am teaching a course for Simpson College this semester. Thankfully, I have the best full-time job in the world with UnityPoint Hospice, and they gave me their blessing to do both.

I’ve taught classes for Simpson before, but this is the first semester where I taught at the Indianola Campus. (Usually, I teach at their Ankeny satellite location). Actually working on campus- the place where I completed my own undergraduate degree 8 years ago- has caused me to reflect upon the distance that I feel from my own college experience.

I always received the implicit message that college was going to be the best years of my life. For whatever reason, it seemed as though people consistently told me that college would basically be the climax of living. High school would be fun, for sure, but college was where things would really come together. You would have so much freedom…you would learn so many new things…you would meet the best friends of your life…you would have fun all the time…it seemed as though college was described as this amazing utopia. And then, the other underlying message was that life kind of…sucked…after college. After college, you had to have responsibilities. Life would be dull. Your job would suck your soul. You wouldn’t have much of a social life. As a result of this message, I was terrified to graduate college. 

However…here’s the thing. I DID love my time at Simpson- I loved the people that I met and the experiences that I had. But I actually think that I am more content NOW in my life than I was in college! I’m sure there are some people that would disagree with this sentiment, but I also know of MANY others that agree that life actually gets better the OLDER we get. Which is a stark contradiction to the mainstream narrative that idolizes youth.

I LIKE being older and out of college for multiple reasons. First of all, I have a MUCH stronger sense of self. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was still so impressionable in college, and I needed other people’s affirmation so badly. I constantly wondered if I was doing “enough.” Was I studying ENOUGH? Was I having ENOUGH fun? Was I working ENOUGH? Was I exercising ENOUGH? I wanted so badly to embody every ideal college experience, and I could never live up to that impossible standard.  Additionally, college was so...overstimulating and extreme…all the time. I was either having the time of my life and feeling incredibly alive, or else I would be down in the dumps worrying about life. There wasn’t much of a stable middle ground.

I really love where I’m at now in life. I like my professional career- I’m running an entire hospice bereavement program, and I also teach a couple of classes per year for Simpson. I like having more downtime- I don’t like being stimulated ALL.THE.TIME. I like being able to read…do DIY projects around my house…and other solitary activities. I like having more time to pursue my hobbies- to pursue circus fitness, take art classes, go to sporting events, and cook actual meals. I like being able to more carefully choose my friends and how I spend my time socially.

 

To summarize my thoughts…As I’ve grown older, I think I've been able to find more meaning in life, and I am more confident in how I obtain this meaning. Additionally, I’m more balanced in how I spend my time and invest my energy. This doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate my college years or miss certain aspects of them; however, I feel very much relieved to be where I’m at right now.

I recognize that I’m still relatively young, and so I can’t necessarily speak to aging during other decades. Nevertheless, my encouragement to others is to value every phase of your life and to recognize that each phase is going to have its own unique benefits and challenges. When you are a little kid, there is value in having time to play and explore the world for the first time. However, that doesn’t mean that being a kid doesn’t have its own challenges- your freedom is consistently limited, you have to deal with social pressures, etc. Or, maybe you are 40 years old and raising children. I have no doubt that it’s likely very beautiful to participate in the creation and growth of another human being. Nevertheless, I also imagine that it’s frustrating to have so many responsibilities and to consistently negate your needs for the sake of another.

I write this blog post because I want it to serve as an anecdote that counters the dominant cultural narrative. We idolize youth, and the negative message against age is rampant. Anti-aging materials have completely saturated the consumer market. The people that we see in advertisements, movies, etc. tend to be young (less than 30). I also witness people try to live vicariously through someone that is in their college years/their 20’s, or else they speak wistfully of their own time in those decades. Instead of idolizing youth, my wish is that we would have a more nuanced perspective on ALL generations. Recognize the benefits and challenges of each phase of life, because believe me, they are there. I believe this perspective helps us simultaneously live in the past, present, AND future. We recognize the beauty of where we have been, we appreciate where we are, and we have confidence in knowing where we are going.