Resolutions for the new, final semester

By Andrew Corcostegui
The Collegian

NEW YEAR’S EVE has always been problematic for me in that it is representative of everything I love, but also a realization that an entire year of highs, lows and in-betweens await.

I woke up New Year’s Day completely aware that I am graduating in less than six months time, that I will be forced to join the real world, buy a suit and get a job I will probably be resentful of.

Perhaps it was the dewy romanticism of the morning, or maybe the hangover talking, but in any event, I concluded that my cynicism regarding my future was entirely too premature for someone with so many opportunities ahead of him.

It finally hit me. It’s time to be an adult soon, and my pseudo-intellectual poseur angst directed at unforeseeable events on the horizon only reiterated my immaturity.

Resolution number one: grow up.

It’s become glaringly clear that this collegiate lifestyle is about to expire, and this prospect is most frightening, primarily because one has to wonder if he or she has accomplished and achieved everything college is supposed to offer.

My mind began to rewind through the events of the past three years, images flashing in no particular order, all bringing to mind the strides I’ve made, the losses I’ve incurred and those chances I never took.

Winter break thusly became a meditation on what it means to move from one period of your life into the next, unsure of whom to be, how to behave, concerned that maybe you missed out on something.

It was that same creepy feeling I experienced my senior year in high school.

I’ve reflected on the people I have met, professors, students, socialites, bums, et al. and I’m bombarded with the feelings associated with each.

Why did I devote so much time to having an enemy in every class? Why did I always sit closest to the students who looked wealthiest? Was it really important what shoes my classmates decided to wear?

Suddenly, my superficiality disgusted me. Time for another choice, another resolution.

Resolution two: lose the elitism.

In the world of grown ups, things like that don’t matter, and I will only continue to embarrass myself if I treat every experience as an episode out of grade school.

The aforementioned people who have come into my life seem pretty remarkable, but I have a sense of reservation about becoming close to any of them.

In my experiences over the past five semesters, people come and people go and it never gets any easier. I had to admit to myself that we all lead completely fluid lives, ones where permanence does not exist.

Those people that you think you will have forever have different agendas, and my codependence on the presence of peeps with similar hang-ups, obsessions and anxieties made me understand the need for an increase in self-reliance.

Resolution three: trust in my own abilities more.

So, armed with a clearer sense of responsibility, a more adjusted disposition and a fierce new hair color, I approach this semester, the final one (provided Joyal says so), with a new sense of optimism.

After all, spending so much time concerned with those inconsequential things that only provide added stress to our overly committed lives really don’t matter in the bigger picture.

I owe it to myself, just as you, the reader, owe it to yourself, to make the most of this experience because the reality of the situation is that at no other point in our lives will we be able to do this all over again under the naïve guise of inexperience.

In May, I will leave this school, supposedly prepared for whatever else is out there. I find assurance in this newly coined confidence that the knowledge a university can feed you is entirely secondary to the personal growth we have to cultivate within ourselves.

Without getting preachy, or overly sentimental, I implore readers, especially those on the brink of graduation, to do the same.

Relish these remaining few months, and make the most of the time we have left together. Resolve to overcome insecurity, to grow out of sophomoric tendencies, and most of all, to enjoy what this experience has to offer.

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