Hindsight is such a close friend

Note: The following post comes verbatim from an email I recently sent to my younger brother. He just graduated from high school and is heading to college in the fall, so I figured I’d take advantage of a Full House moment. Check the follow-up for another’s perspective.

My brother and I at home on Easter 2008

So you probably figured you’d escaped your pre-college summer without any corny older brother “this is how life is” talks. Sorry to disappoint. The following are my random musings on the college life, “finding yourself” and the all-around best (hopefully) years of your life so far. I pray they won’t be the best years of your life—because you’ll have so many more afterward—but I also pray that they far surpass any of your previous years.

My thoughts aren’t really in any order except the order in which they occurred to me out of the blue. Some are a bit humorous, but they all have at least a tinge of gravity. Without further ado, here goes:

1. Always open your car door for a girl, regardless of whether you’re actually dating or not. Word will get around that you’re actually a gentleman and, even here in the South, true gentlemen are few and far between. While you’re at it, open EVERY door for girls. Sure it’ll cost you a few seconds each time, but trust me, it’s worthwhile in the end.

2. Join a church. And be active. It took me more than two years to actually get plugged into a church in which I was truly comfortable and felt welcomed. And the past two years I’ve spent serving every other Sunday and going to a weekly all-guys small group. It’ll keep you grounded and it’ll keep you in the right frame of mind. Get some of your friends to go church-hopping for the first few Sundays of school. Go to brunch/lunch afterward each time, and take the time to compare the merits of each. In the end, stick with whatever makes YOU feel comfortable and welcomed. Then get active.

3. Join a random student group. That’s where you’ll meet most of your new friends at school. Some of them won’t work out—I quit Roosevelt halfway through sophomore year—but you’ll be a better, more well-rounded student and person for it.

4. Get your grades in order. If you have a good foundation for your GPA beginning even the first semester of college, you’ll love having a cushion to play with for your last year or two. Take as many random classes as you can fit into your schedule and still be on track. Again, this will make you more well-rounded, which is the basic reason for going to college in the first place.

5. Don’t stress about your grades. This might sound contradictory to the above suggestion, but when you have to choose between your personal sanity/happiness and a point or two on a test/quiz/project/paper, the choice should be an easy one. And it has nothing to do with GPA, believe me. Know when you’ve simply had enough. If you have the opportunity to broaden your horizons and have a good time, I’d generally encourage you to go do whatever that opportunity is.

6. Really know a few of your professors. Even freshman year I had a few professors that I thought I could count as actual friends. This will happen more with each year, but get the practice underway as soon as you get on campus.

7. EXERCISE. This tip is probably the #1 way to ensure that you stay both sane and happy throughout college. Take some time for yourself. There will be tens of thousands of people to talk to/meet every day, but make sure that you’re in a good frame of mind. Walk to class. Or unicycle. Or run. Go to the gym. It’ll give you time to think things through and an opportunity to vent any frustration/anger you may have. Make it a regular thing. And hey, avoiding that freshman 15 won’t hurt either, right?

8. Branch out. This is the biggest differentiator I’ve noticed between those who love their college experiences and those who don’t: Those who don’t tend to gravitate back to their high school friends. Now, you might note that because I went to UGA, I didn’t really have the option of hanging out with high school friends, but that’s beside the point. I’ve had the opportunity to objectively observe both kinds of people from my perspective, and the ones with the most rewarding experiences have a diverse group of friends. Seek out people from different high schools, different states, different religions, different ethnicities, etc. “Different” is often the best judge of whether someone will be a close friend or not.

And I’ll end on one of my favorite quotes—after paragraphs of rambling that you may or may not have actually read:

“Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you
come alive, then go do that. Because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.” — Howard Thurman, American philosopher

College is your time to come alive. Don’t get too grandiose, thinking that you’ll “find yourself” and all; you’ll only get frustrated by the number of dead ends you encounter. There are more of them then[sic] you can imagine. But the encouraging thing is that every dead end gives you the opportunity to reverse course and take a different turn.

In the end, you’re never going to fully find yourself. What you will find, though, is that “yourself” will be waiting for you around every bend, every fork in the road. And where you get the feeling you’re discovering yourself, know that discovering God can’t be far behind.

The closest I ever came to finding both was in the middle of the Indian Ocean off the coast of Zanzibar, with a black storm bearing down on us and a dozen sea urchin spines in my feet. Sounds terrible, but it was the most transcendent experience of my life. And the crazy thought that occurred to me in those moments was that I had somehow been waiting for myself out there in the ocean. And that God was wading there with me, pushing and tugging all along. I know…strange.

A few semesters ago, I had to write a so-called purpose statement for myself and my life plan. It’s pretty corny, but I spent a lot of time on it, and it means a lot to me. Call me audacious and/or presumptuous, but I believe that if you take these words to heart, you’ll find yourself down the road living a fulfilling life.

Love with conviction, pursue with passion;
Persevere with integrity, succeed without agenda.

Remember, it’s not all about you. But sometimes…it mostly is. Guard your heart, your emotions, your sanity and your happiness most of all.

As Aldous says in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, “Don’t let them grind you down.”

I love you and wish you the best in this amazing time of your life. I’m excited to see you on the other side.

Update on Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 10:18PM by Eric

From one of the guys who continues to motivate me and who never ceases to give me a different perspective on life (ie. whenever I walk into his office bummed about how I don’t have a job, his response is always the same: “That’s great! That means you have a lot of opportunities! How exciting!”), here are his words on a pretty situation: EJ’s Blog post.

Comments

[Eric Johnson]

Great post. I appreciate your wisdom and your willingness to share it. All our first-years should read this.
EJ