By: Kaitlyn Pfannenstiel
In a society that is so focused on growing up, speeding through the work week, and longing for the future, how often are you told to “slow down” or to “take things slower?”
In high school, you are expected to pick your major for college and know exactly what you want to be when you grow up. During college, your studies, internships, and jobs consume all of your free time, making it nearly impossible to relish in your college years. Everything you do is centered around the future that you want to make for yourself. What about the time you are presently in? Where does it go? As a senior in college expecting to graduate in May, let me be the millionth person to tell you that your college years absolutely fly by.
You start out as a young, inexperienced freshman trying to navigate the dorm life and secure a friend group. As the weeks start to fly by you experience your first Husker football game, first college exam, and your first phone call back home to your family. You begin to mature and enjoy all of these experiences, but you start to forget all of the little details. Time starts to move a bit quicker and before you know it you are taking your “last first day of school” picture as your senior year of college begins.
Throughout my years in college, I can’t tell you how many times I longed to be an adult, to have the responsibility, maturity, and respect that adults suddenly achieve once they graduate college and find a job in the real world. Somehow, the adult life seemed to be more appealing than the fun, careless times I was experiencing with my close friends in college. If freshman year me knew that I yearned for my college life to pass me by so that I could have the picture-perfect life that I had been dreaming of, she would be furious. Sure, dreaming of your future is refreshing to think about. However, it is not worth rushing through life to get there. Life is meant to be lived. It is meant to be remembered. It is meant to be experienced. One cannot possibly live, remember, and truly experience life if all you long for is the future.
As I reminisce on these past few years, a long “to do” list has started to form in my mind. What do I need to check off of my bucket list before I graduate? How can I slow time down and sincerely make the most of the time remaining? From here on out, I am going to fill my schedule with activities that I will always cherish. I am going to worry less about the homework assignment that I will never be able to recall because in the end, it simply doesn’t matter. Most of all, I am going to slow down and live in the present. The time I am in right now deserves to be remembered.