Something Changing

Would it be a blog post without me recognizing that I have gone a copious amount of time without posting?

Life is weird. We are constantly told that through growth and exploration we change as people. By taking on multiple experiences we find out who we truly are. For the last four years I genuinely thought I was doing that. After reading through my old blog posts, I realize that I fooled myself in thinking that I have changed. More importantly, I may have been fooling myself all along in thinking that was the goal.

When I started this blog I was a 17 year old, recent high school graduate who was trying to get a handle on the world. I thought I was pretty smart but knew I still had a lot to learn.

As I write this post, I am a 21 year old, recent college graduate who is trying to get a handle on the world. I think I'm pretty smart but I still have a lot to learn.

Reading through my old blog posts was an interesting exercise for me. Up until right now, I really thought I had drastically changed as a person. You know what "they" always say, "the only thing constant in life is change." I thought that after spending two years in the dorms, a semester in France, and two years in my first apartment that I would have for sure changed. I even tricked myself into thinking that I really did change.

The realization came when I read an old post about my Chicago trip. I included an anecdote about how we wandered around and got lost at night. On the surface it was an awful situation but now it makes for a funny story, something I explicitly said in the post. Just a few months ago some friends and I went out in Des Moines and lost our car downtown. We wandered around for a full hour going block by block until we finally found it. Again, the whole time I thought it was hilarious and would make for a good story. When I told my friend that it was actually a pretty funny situation, I thought I was discovering a revolutionary fact about myself: I place a lot of value in positivity finding the good in bad situations.

Turns out, I had already came to that conclusion 4 years prior, I just hadn't realized how important it was to me. Several other posts insinuated themes that align with my value system without me realizing it.

I do not believe that we change as people. I do not think our values end up being all that different from what we started with. I recognize that on the surface this is an extremely conservative worldview, but I'm not saying those values and beliefs go unchallenged. What has changed for me has not been my values, but my understanding of my values. That should be the goal: to understand yourself more, not change yourself.

When I was studying abroad I met people from all over. I travelled throughout several places in Europe and saw fascinating historical sites and artifacts. As somebody who values the joy that comes from understanding anything and anyone, it was an amazing semester for me. There were, however, some times during the semester when I thought to myself, have I really changed? Every study abroad blog and promotion touts about how life changing of an experience it is and my whole time there I kept feeling like something was missing.

It wasn't until about a year after I returned that I realized that, I hadn't necessarily changed, and that was okay. My happiness came from doing things that I enjoyed. I was indulging my values and in learning about everything from old monuments to the French language, that sense of fulfillment did in fact change my life, but it did not change me.

My young ignorance is what most likely led to the conception that people change with experiences. In the last four years I have developed a more complete understanding of myself and my values and that, in turn, has made more more confident and sociable. While that technically is a change in how I act, again, it is not a change in who I am.

I by no means know everything about myself or my values yet. I don't think I ever will. I do, however, want to do whatever I can to gain that understanding. I think one of the best ways to do that is by putting myself in a new environment. This Fall I will be studying law at the University of California, Berkeley. As silly as it sounds, I have every intention of changing the world.

Again, this is not really a change for me. I have thought about going to law school forever and I have always wanted to have an impactful life. I just feel more comfortable articulating it and feel I am making a well informed decision. As always, I am looking forward to my next step. I cannot wait to further change the way I see myself, and hey, that's something.