<p>I’m posting this here because I am specifically looking for college students’ responses (older people incl. parents feel free to answer also). This is very hard for me to articulate, but I will try.</p>
<p>I want to improve myself as a person (morals, behavior, personality, etc). I also want to have more structure in my life meaning I have a set kind of schedule and consistency in my life. I want to be that diligent person/student who has his priorities straightened. This doesn’t have to do with time management, but more with living your whole life like this. I feel like I’m living in a whirlwind…I just do things as they come and am not really achieving my ultimate goals. I don’t get a good day to day feeling about my life. All I can think about is how I WANT my life to be. </p>
<p>I’ve tried to get to this level of self-satisfaction, but I have yet to get there. Can people get to a level complete (or almost complete) self-satisfaction? This is why I am asking this question…I want to know if any of you guys are LIVING your life the way you want to live it. Again, this isn’t about goal setting or time management…it’s more like “is the road map in your head at all representative of your real life?”</p>
<p>You should be happy you have the luxury of philosophical thinking instead of being in a war or a big jam and trying to figure out if you’re going to wake up alive tomorrow. If you can laugh once a day, you’ve got it made.</p>
<p>Wanted to add…I’m looking for more technical than philosophical answers, which kind of contradicts the whole not about time management/goal setting. Maybe you can give a mix of both?</p>
<p>Central Perky, I’ve posted this before, but theres a great book called: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. I think it really applies to your situation. It gives realistic/technical/applicable advice more so than just purely philosophical concepts. </p>
<p>It talks about the different levels of time management, and tips on how to escape from the day to day time management and into creating and following the <em>roadmap</em> of your life as you want it, and improvement yourself as a person as you mentioned from the inside out.</p>
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<p>Yeah, you should be happy and thankful, but “you’ve got it made”? No, I dont think that thinking “you’ve got it made” just because you’re not in the worst possible situation will get you anywhere. Living like that isn’t going to bring an end to the unfortunate cirumstances that you mentioned either.</p>
<p>You, me and every other student you have proposed this question to are all 18-20 years old or so. We’re so young, barely even having experienced life. How can you know what you want life to be like when you haven’t even felt most of it? Right now, most of us are just going day by day, growing, changing, trying to figure out how to make the transition from the structure of high school and having parents keep us on track to living on our own and having to figure out how to make priorities and figure out what we want out of life. </p>
<p>New people and opportunities are always coming along. Depending on if/how you take advantage of them, your life could change in ways you never imagined. This could be a good or a bad thing, but you won’t know until it happens. But since sooooo many possibilities haven’t presented themselves yet, we have no idea if life now is the way we want it to be 10 years, 5 years, or even 1 year from now. I say you just take things as they come, make the best choices you know how to, and eventually life will fall into a pattern you’ll be happy with.</p>
<p>Perky, I know what you’re talking about, in a sense.</p>
<p>I feel like the wind just passed by and blew my life into a pithole I can’t get out of. I had this experience before, my 2nd year of HS, where I fell into severe depression and self-disgust and it just spiraled deeper and deeper. It took an ENORMOUS effort and life-reflection to get myself out, and I was back on track by my junior year. I ACHIEVED what I wanted to be, and I was at my peak the summer after senior year. I was excited for college, cause I thought I would just continue this upward path and do better in college.</p>
<p>Yet somehow, after this first year of college, I’m back in the hole. I don’t know what to do again, and I feel hopeless. On one hand, I know what to do, but now that I’m in this new situation where I can’t just throw away the bad and make it right, I don’t really know how to do it.</p>
<p>i can honestly say that my life is exactly where i want it to be. i absolutely love it and would change anything for the world. my motto of late has been “the life i live is the life i love”</p>
<p>but, i may be an exception. i have always been overwhelming cheery and optimistic. i can’t honestly think of a time when i didn’t love my life.</p>
<p>people have told me that my constant optimism and happiness is actually a little annoying. i guess i just never went through that angsty teen phase.</p>
<p>I feel quite fulfilled in my life, though it’s been a long road getting here.</p>
<p>If I could boil it down to a few realizations that I have made in my life. The thing about realizations is that often they can only be your own; often you can’t just adopt those of others but have to muscle your way through life to get your own. Anyway, here are some notions that help me as I apply them:</p>
<p>1) I know myself.
2) I care less, much less, than I used to about others’ judgements of me.
3) Balance in life is key, and finding your balance in the context of the real world is crucial.
4) One cannot rely on friends to make one whole, or to always be dependable, but your life’s worth is most readily measure in the quality of friendships you have. Make time for them.</p>
<p>These are just a few. I’ll have to think about some others later.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, here’s a thread that might have some interesting insights:</p>
<p>Thank you to everyone who replied. Your posts have enlightened me on my own situation.
syneria, you described exactly how I’m feeling. I think I’m at exactly the place you described.
While I feel I don’t care about what people think, I think my problem may be that I too often try to follow society’s description of what’s good and bad…successful and unsuccessful.</p>
<p>What you said is what I am talking about, not a more superficial way of defining others judgements of me. It is rather sometimes almost unconsciously following what other people or society dictates as good.</p>
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<p>Two quick thoughts: 1) If you are in a serious situation in terms of your depression, it can make sense to use medication. I went through a pretty serious depression a couple of years ago. The only thing that snapped me out of it was medication. Had I not taken the medication, I hate to think what I might have done otherwise. I was in a very, very dark place. Everybody responds to different anti-d’s differently. If anyone in your family has used a particular kind to good effect, chances are greater that the same kind will work for you. 2) A general observation from someone who has been there – and this could be completely irrelevant to your situation, but when you are in a funk only doing more of the same and doing it faster is not the way to get out of the funk. Sometimes you need to let up, relax, get some help and maybe some meds, and let yourself figure out new ways of being. I know that sounds vague, but the point is to let up on yourself a bit, have some fun, experience new friends, etc.</p>
<p>I would feel weird using anti-d’s. I feel that everyone has personal struggle, and it’s just up to us to figure things out; sure, a counselor or a therapist might help, but meds? I feel it’s like getting liposuction just because you’re too lazy to run and lose some pounds.</p>
<p>As for me, I think my root of problem may lie in maybe letting up on myself too much, having more fun than I could handle with my workload, etc. </p>
<p>:\ It’s hard, and it’s something that I just need to fix myself, but it’s comforting to know that there are others out there in my boat. It honestly really is. At least I’m not alone.</p>
