VIRGINIA CALCAGNI — Staff Writer
It is the time of year where you are going to be reading a bunch of different articles that have to do with graduation. I want to try to make this one a little different.
All throughout grade school I was not a fan of school at all. The thought of going to college was actually scary because I wasn’t really a fan of school.
All that changed when I started college.
I love school now. College is such a different environment, and it has become a comfort zone for me.
That happens to us a lot in life, I think. We find areas that are our comfort zones, and we fixate on them. And instead of that being helpful, it ends up harming us in the end because we never want to leave it.
I like to think of it like comfort food. We always want to run to the macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes or ice cream of our lives-the things that make us feel comfortable.
Change is the scary big monster that we have to face after we have had all of our macaroni and cheese. I think of graduating as being this, but at the same time I see it as a way to try and mold our comfort zones into something much greater.
As college students we do things because, more or less, we have to. And while that doesn’t really change when we all step out onto the real road of life, we feel more in control of our lives.
The best choices that we can make for ourselves are the hardest ones. For years I have known exactly what I want to do and I am ready to try it. I am ready to go out there and step out of my bubble and accomplish what I want.
People ask me “Why radio?” all the time. My simple answer is that I love everything about it, especially the ties with music.
We can all have different comfort zones, such as jobs, or even people.
Over the past couple times I have written, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and aimed to grab my pieces from a deeper place because that is what needs to happen: stepping out and stepping forward for what I am passionate about. It is harder to do than it is to write.
I am taking a stress management class here at Southern, and one of the things that we have learned is that we sometimes end up doing dances in our lives. We are constantly going in circles and not making changes. When you think about it and compare it to your life, you realize how true it is, and that is scary.
I don’t think there is anything scarier than standing up for what you believe in and going for your dreams. But I do those things, and I will continue to do them as I walk up to get my diploma in my cap and gown and watch the past five years fly by behind my closed eyelids.
This is something that I and so many others will be doing, and it is what so many have done. But we are getting out of our habits and making changes for the better.
Having the hope that I can achieve my dreams and graduation are major stressors, but it will happen, and all we can do is cross our fingers and do what we need to do. Believe it or not, we have the chances and the opportunities; we just sometimes overlook them because of fear. But in order to succeed, I have realized fear is the best thing that could happen to me because it makes me want to work harder toward my goal and take hold of it.
So my challenge is to put down the comfort food and take charge of the changes that need to be made. As I put the past five years behind me, I look for a future that involves lots of waves—radio waves that is.