Don’t (just) wait for those college admissions letters Are you caught up in the Big Wait, so your college admissions letters can determine your self-worth and direction? Are you just trying to kill time until Spring when those (crap, they are totally going to reject me) letters arrive? Nah. Nah-nah. You never know how it’s going to go. The admissions process is more arbitrary than you'd like. We have less control than we wish (over, well, everything). Accepted? Rejected? Why would you give all your power away to those labels? You've got more that that, I know it. Also-- poll your peers in college: even if you get into the school you're hoping desperately for, you STILL might not get what you thought you wanted (transfer apps, anyone?). So what can you do for the next four agonizing, god awful, interminable months, while you wait for your letters? A-ha! Refuse to live in anything but the now (pretty bad-ass, pretty hard) You can lean away from the collective anxiety. Be adamant about your right to be in this moment fully. It's a human right. It's annoying to hear and exhilarating to realize. The very best thing you can do in this waiting period is not wait at all. Instead, ask yourself what makes you want to go to college in the first place. Feed the person you wish to become. Guides to action are proliferating across the internet right now. Here's mine, for you: Ways to Not Just Wait (for Spring, or anything) Really give a crap about what your (good) teachers are saying. Learn as much from them as you can. Forgive your bad teachers. They don't know the damage they do, but you can be grateful to them as material for your writing and as counterexample. Ask your parents stuff. Learn about your family history. Push for details; listen with open mind. Challenge yourself. Not for that admissions brag sheet, not because anyone's looking. Just because. Not feeling school? Learn something online. This is the internet, a Continue Reading …
Curiosity
Be Curious
Easy to Advise, Hard to Do: Stay Curious By now, you've pressed submit on your college applications. Or your child has. Or your friend has. Or someone you knew as a baby has. Or you're reflecting on an upcoming big decision that is is-- at this point out-- of your hands (more on hands in a moment). How can you keep from dying with agony over what the results will be? Be curious. And by "curious", I don't mean obsessed. And I don't mean neurotically rehearsing possibilities. "Be curious" urges and instructs you to find in yourself an open state of friendly inquiry into the present. As in, the present. As in, the present. I didn't know any better back when I'm a hypocrite. When I was waiting for my college letters, 8 million years ago when humans had just sprouted opposable thumbs, I couldn't maintain the equanimous tenet of "Be curious" (about your experience). No, I had the worst nightmares of my life, things I couldn't even believe my imagination could come up with, in an other-wise generally PG-13-rated brain-scape, and content I don't feel comfortable rehashing in this blog. But almost 20 years later, I still remember those dreams vividly. So you can imagine how much they sucked, and how much my mind was hijacked by worry about what I could not control. This is why I can say confidently that if you can "be curious" instead of "being consumed", your time will pass a lot more enjoyably. An exercise in curiosity with opposable thumbs Your opposable thumbs are going to be your ally in this moment. Check 'em out. Stick 'em up. Gaze at their tips to steady your attention. Make them kiss each other like I did as a kid. Be curious about your hands, like a baby (or a stoner, but that's a different matter) might be. (Haven't been around a baby in a while? I've got one whose diapers you can change with your opposable...). Here are simple activities that allow you to test your opposable thumb's usefulness-- for essay writing and more. The Continue Reading …