Being independent and able to make your own decision is scary, but it’s also exhilarating and amazing. My whole life I’ve had my parents to lay out my day-to-day life, and now literally everything I do is up to me. I’ve really enjoyed the fact that I get to decide what I do with my free time. There are no more obligations to athletics, volunteering, working, or chores. If I don’t want to do it, I don’t have to. With that being said, when I do choose to be in these activities, they are truly things that I want to do. The second-best thing is that I have utter and complete control over my diet. If I’m not hungry, I don’t have to force down food. If I don’t like what the dining hall has to offer, I can make some instant Raman in my room. The freedom to choose my own schedule and life has really been a dramatic change since high school.
One the other hand, I do miss the structure that home and high school had to offer. Just a few months ago, I didn’t have to make the conscious thought to fit eating, homework, and taking care of myself into my schedule. Everything was just laid out for me. I had a work schedule. I had dinner ready for me when I came home. And I had sports practices. Now I must make the active decisions every day to take care of myself: eating vegetables, going to the gym, completing my homework on time. It is, in a way, a little bit more exhausting; however, that’s what adulting is. College is teaching us how to be the bosses of our own time, and to prepare us for this beautiful and exciting world we are entering into.
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