An interesting conversation with a colleague last week made me wonder about the way people talk to each other.
I asked her about what it was like to be a graduate student, and she described the perfectly typical, ordinary life that most of us spew off to strangers when making small talk - something a lot of us tend to do.
We speak without really making a connection and communicating because it's difficult to truly converse with everyone you meet. Many times we just don't want to exert ourselves on a person we don't really know.
Normally, I accept such an explanation, being a purveyor of it myself. This time, however, I felt particularly loquacious. I decided to inquire a little further, to actually care instead of pretending.
Upon further conversation, she said that she's so busy that she doesn't have the time to do anything else. I've had many conversations like this, and when she said those magic words - "But things'll get better when I graduate"- I knew I had to dispel that myth.
For most of us, this is a time in our lives when we are young and just learning to shoulder the burden of living our lives for ourselves. Overwhelmed by all the responsibilities we have to school, work, organizations, friends, family, relationships and to ourselves, we create routines to help us manage.
We schedule ourselves into corners and focus so much on just getting through the grind of our days that we lose sight of the bigger picture.
But this is the time of our lives with the most options, the most opportunity. We are literally in the process of creating who we are and laying the foundation for the people we will become.
Life places a lot of milestones in front of us, tempting us with the notion that "everything will change" once we hit that marker.
Some things do change - the transition from high school to college gave us more freedom and more responsibility. But when we get into the "real" world, our full-time jobs demand as much or more time than school does, and we end up with even more obligations.
Sure, things change, but those changes are relatively minor compared to the changes that most people idly dream about in the horizon, the complete transformations into the youthful fairy tales they wished for.
Those kinds of changes do not just happen with time. Those kinds of changes must come from within.
You probably won't wake up one day and find your life magically changed into your dream. But that doesn't mean your dream is impossible, it means that you must go out and make it happen.
If you don't know a lot of people and want more friends, find people and organizations that interest you. If you want to learn more about the world around you, go to events that sound informative. If you want to lose weight, start dieting and exercising. If you want a boy/girlfriend, start talking to boys/girls!
If you want change, pursue it! Above all, always challenge yourself to be more than you are and grow. It's never too late to change, but it's easier in certain times than others.
Of course, you don't have to do anything. You can always refuse to change in a world that is constantly shifting, like the Ficus tree against the hurricane. Just don't be surprised if you snap in the face of the gale.
You can also sit around wishing that your life will change, and maybe it will. Maybe the sun will blow up tomorrow, too.
You have a possibility of reaching Los Angeles walking through the desert instead of taking the highway, but the probability is better on the highway. You're on the highway right now.
Break your routines - as the saying goes "routine is the death of passion" - and start today. The key is to start small and use each success as a fuel for your confidence to help you tackle bigger problems.
Along the way, evaluate your goals to make sure that they haven't changed and you're headed in the right direction. There will be obstacles, there will be slip-ups, but with dedication you can persevere.
Finding yourself and determining your future is the first step to finding the meaning of life.
Reach the reporter at: nicholas.vaidyanathan.
