Many of us here at Western feel as though we are in the midst of the above. The pressure of finals week has finally shattered the carefully constructed bunker of our procrastination, forcing us to action. We long for those final days in which we shall be free from this terrible burden which has afflicted our very souls (please note, this is me being dramatic). Indeed, rarely can we find something which compares to the feeling of the elation which comes along with a finals week well done. In the same way, it is not often that something can hurt like a quarter ending on a painfully low note.
The interesting thing to me, though, is that this week means absolutely nothing for the rest of the world. This infamous half of a fortnight, which is so impactful for university students, is just another week to most people. Work continues, families still need to be fed, the latest J.J. Abrams show (we're still on Fringe, right?) asks eight new questions and answers one.
This might seem almost offensive to those of us in the midst of this stupendously stressful time in our lives. At that oh-so-very scary point at which we think without analyzing, we find our minds screaming "How dare these people live normal lives while I'm freaking out about all these pretty pictures in my biology textbook!"
The silliness of this thinking should be readily apparent, and yet it is something to which I think we can relate. Even in life outside of college, there exists many an opportunity to become so focused on what is going on in our lives that we become agitated by anyone who isn't involved in the same stressful activities. In these moments, it is particularly important for us to think on what kind of an impact this thinking is having on the way in which we interact with others.
As a tradition for many, finals week is a time in which we shut ourselves off from the world. Living in the dorms this year, I have seen this first hand, both in myself and in others. In my case, I think I became some sort of shadow version of myself while I was writing my 27 page senior thesis, a creature which only partially existed in this world. As such, I was very difficult to find, which was exactly what I wanted to be. I had too much to focus on, too much going on in my own life, to worry about what was going on around me.
It isn't until now that I've noticed just how selfish that thinking is. In some way, I justified the idea that my stress, my needs superseded all those of any individual around me. What I was going through was inherently, in my mind, more important than what anyone else could be experiencing at that moment. Hopefully we can all see the flaw in that thought process.
In light of this, I have tried to reorient my thinking during times of stress, and I would encourage those reading to do the same. Instead of allowing ourselves to charge down the slope of stress into the mire of self-absorbtion, I think we need to take our stressful times as periods in which we are extra attentive to the needs of those around us. The entire world expects us to be obsessed with what is going on in our lives when things get hard. What an amazing chance we have, then, to show how God has empowered us to care for people by consciously taking the focus off of ourselves in those stressful times.
With His love and hopefully His grace,
Taylor
Some good points here Taylor. Although I wouldn't consider self-absorption during finals week as "selfish thinking." If you don't take the time you need to get your work done, then the only person you're hurting is yourself.
ReplyDeleteI hear you, and that's a good point. Failing out of college means you can't help anyone. At the risk of sounding like a masochist, though, I think it's good for us to have a willingness to "hurt ourselves", not in a weird way, but in a more sacrificial sense. There needs to be a balance, of course.
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