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Don't Peak in High School

With another school year over, it can be a reflective time of year (especially if you’re graduating). You think back on all of the accomplishments, the letdowns, the highs and the lows.  It’s easy to feel a wide array of emotions as well – everything from relief to joy to pride, to sadness and disappointment and everything in between. It can be overwhelming.

What can make this transition time so difficult is the pressure – there are so many heightened expectations during the high school years to make the most of the supposedly best years of your life.

I think that this kind of pressurized, expectation-building thinking needs to stop. As someone who didn’t particularly enjoy high school, I remember leaving grade 12 wondering if I should have tried harder to have that indefinable “time of my life” that everyone always talked about.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have highs in secondary school, but there were lows, too.  High school was a memorable time in its own way, but it’s foolish to amp up that period of your life when you still have a lot of living ahead of you! Maybe I want my 30s, or my 40s, or even my 80s to be the best decades of my life – and they easily could be! Your happiness is not reserved for any single era of your life.

So…if you have finished another year of school or have graduated and are feeling confused or disappointed in any way – don’t let it get to you. Good things in life happen in every decade, not just when you’re young. The best times are yet to come!

Why You Might Want to Pick Up a Pen More Often...

As an experiment, I'm handwriting today's bog post in a notebook first instead of typing it up on my laptop.

A recent New York Times article presented the idea that writing by hand, rather than on a keyboard, may benefit learning in both children and adults.

In school, children acquire reading skills more quickly as writing skills are introduced. Additionally, they are able to remember things better through and become more creative through writing things down.

In another study, a psychologist demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and keyboard typing were all linked with different parts and patterns in the brain. However, when children wrote out text by hand, they had larger vocabularies and were able to generate more ideas.

According to the article, the benefits of handwriting are seen in adults, too. We can commit new concepts and ideas to memory with greater ability when we write by hand. Furthermore, in real-world classroom studies, two psychologists showed that handwriting allows students to better process the learning content and then "reframe" it. This reframing allows for a reflective process that may be lost in keyboard typing.

Even a skeptic of the study still acknowledges the significance of writing: "With handwriting, the very act of putting it down forces you to focus on what's important. Maybe it helps you think better."

Do you prefer typing on a keyboard, or writing by hand? Experiment for yourself! It's never too late to start a journal or a new piece of writing - and you might even learn something!

You can read the full NY Times article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=0

If I were 22...

In a recent series of articles entitled “If I were 22…”, bestselling author and MD Deepak Chopra offered some life advice to twenty-somethings who might be feeling lost or unsure about the direction their lives are taking.

Feeling uncertain about what path to take or what choices to make can be tough at any age, but it can be especially difficult as a young person. The pressure to make the “right” decisions early on can cause a lot of anxiety and hardship – particularly when there are so many career, travel, or study options available.

While some people might feel paralyzed by the uncertainty in life, Chopra gives us a more positive outlook on things.

Speaking from his own experience, he writes:

The greatest thing about being 22 is that none of these traps have closed. The instinct to be free is very strong when you're young. The flame of discontent is still fueled by idealism. If you consciously attune yourself to the best in your nature, you will be holding tight to the invisible thread. The world's wisdom traditions declare that Dharma is real and can be trusted. Uncertainty isn't something to fear. It's an absolutely necessary prerequisite if you want to kick-start the age-old process known as the beginning of wisdom.

Chopra adds that by attuning ourselves to certain things, we can embrace feelings of uncertainty rather than be trapped by them. Here are some of his suggestions:

-focusing and reflecting on your sense of empathy with others

-accepting that you deserve to happy and have fulfillment in life

-understanding that you are unique in the universe

How does uncertainty play out in your life? If you have felt lost or paralyzed by not knowing in the past, how have you dealt with things? Perhaps just viewing uncertainty as a tool instead of a burden can help us tune into ourselves and the larger world around us.

For further reading, you can view the full series of articles “If I were 22…” here:

https://www.linkedin.com/channels/10000306?trk=prod-inf-ifiwere-0520-cutline

It's that Time of Year Again...

If you’re in high school or university, you should be just finished or wrapping up your studies in the next month. It’s always such a surreal time – disbelief that the school year is over, the scramble to finish last minute assignments, the saying of goodbyes to friends for the summer (or longer), and perhaps the trepidation of moving onward to something different altogether.

For those of you who are graduating, first of all, I say congratulations! It’s such an exciting, celebratory, and equally terrifying time. Good luck with commencing the year, and even more good wishes for the next steps you’ll take after accepting your diploma.

As part of the theme of this week’s blog post, I like to talk about a young woman named Marina Keegan. If you haven’t heard of her, she graduated from Yale in 2012, where she was a prolific writer and student leader. She was also her class’ valedictorian and wrote an incredibly moving commencement speech called “The Opposite of Loneliness”. Just days after her graduation, she was killed in a car accident. She was 22.

In her address to her classmates, Marina summarized her time as a student like this:

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.

            …

But let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. They’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to New York and away from New York and wish we did or didn’t live in New York. I plan on having parties when I’m 30. I plan on having fun when I’m old. Any notion of THE BEST years comes from clichéd “should haves…” “if I’d…” “wish I’d…”

…

We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lay alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out – that it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.

…

What we have to remember is that we can still do anything. We can change our minds. We can start over. Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time. The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical. It’s hilarious. We’re graduating college. We’re so young. We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.

You can read Marina’s full commencement address here:

http://yaledailynews.com/crosscampus/2012/05/27/keegan-the-opposite-of-loneliness/

If you’re interested in reading more of Marina’s work, you can read her collection of essays and stories published this past April, also entitled ‘The Opposite of Loneliness”.

A Few Thoughts on Mindfulness

It seems as if all of us are so busy these days– and we just keep getting busier. Juggling work, school, family, personal relationships, and our free time simultaneously can be absolutely exhausting.

This balancing act in life may never go away, but it turns out, there are some pretty effective ways to manage the stress of our busyness. It all starts with mindfulness, which is defined as the practice of cultivating a focused awareness on the present moment, as both a daily habit and a lifelong process.

Some people might automatically think of meditation as a way to become more mindful, and that’s definitely one aspect of it. But, you’ll be glad to know that there are a lot of mindful acts you take part in right now, as part of your daily routine:

1)   Focus on your breathing - If you’re feeling really overwhelmed, try be aware of how you are inhaling and exhaling in that moment. Don’t worry about trying to breathe a certain way, just listen to your body’s natural way of taking in and releasing oxygen.

2)   Take a walk, even a short one - We all know that exercise is good for us physically, but more and more, studies are showing that movement can have a positive effect on us mentally, such as reducing stress and getting our creative juices flowing.

3)   Being aware of yourself in the moment – This may sound difficult, but it’s actually quite simple. For example, if you’re feeling particularly anxious about something, simply take note of that anxiety. How does it physically make you feel? Is your heart beating faster than normal? Do you feel hot? Is your mind racing? Rather than trying to force yourself to calm down (which may only add to your stress), just try to be aware of how your mental state is manifesting itself physically. Having this kind of awareness is healthy, and is a better option that ignoring how you’re really feeling!

Burnout, fatigue, and stress seem to be an entrenched part of life these days. But, take comfort in the fact that you’re not alone in feeling these kinds of emotions. Taking a few moments of your day to be aware of your present thoughts and feelings can go a long way to helping you become more in tune with yourself and your thoughts.

For further reading, please check out this article entitled “Habits of Mindful People,” which this blog post is based on: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/30/habits-mindful-people_n_5186510.html

Have a restful weekend, everyone!

We Grow Through Pain

One of the adages that I try to remember when the going gets tough is pretty simple. A close family friend first said it to me and it’s only four words long:

We grow through pain.

It’s easy to remember, it’s a little more comforting than Nietzsche’s “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, and most importantly, it’s 100% true.

Think about the life stories of famous people, of your family and friends, and of yourself – what stands out the most? Sure, definitely the happy moments and successes are what keep us going. But how do people really learn about themselves? How do they grow and mature into the people they are today? From personal experience, it’s been through the tribulations and challenges that I discovered the most about myself.

Transitioning from university to the working world, I spent sixteen months travelling and teaching ESL in Asia. For the first year, I was living in South Korea, and had the absolute time of my life. I was working with other foreign teachers and made fast friends, my students were excited and curious, and the city was dynamic and easy to get around. Life was, in a word, a blast.

When my contract was up, I decided that I didn’t yet have Asia out of my system, so I chose to extend my time in Asia and try teaching somewhere new: China.

Without sounding too melodramatic, the four months I spent in The People’s Republic were absolutely miserable. My school placed me in a slum apartment with roommates I couldn’t relate to, I was sick constantly from the food and the pollution, my students were little hell-raisers, and I just couldn’t seem to make friends.

One day, while on the hour-long commute home from my school, I just about broke down. I had been sick with a sinus infection that wouldn’t go away, I was so incredibly frustrated with my students for constantly being disrespectful, and I knew I was going home to my apartment where my horrible roommates were lurking. In that moment, I wanted to be anywhere else in the world than as the only foreign face on that congested subway car. On top of that, it was a few days before Christmas and I was so unspeakably lonely and homesick that I wanted to curl up into a ball right then and there. I remember trying to Skype with family and friends back home to get some comfort, but my internet connection was so terrible that conversations simply weren’t possible on a regular basis.

Safe to say, others have faced much, much tougher challenges than that in life – let me make it clear that I’m aware of that! But at that moment, I had never felt more lost.

In the face of my predicament, the thing that saved me in China was reading. I decided that if I was miserable with my surroundings, I’d read as much as possible about other places I wanted to be in. So, with the help of my e-reader, and authors like Ernest Hemingway, Haruki Murakami, and W.O. Mitchell, I was transported to the streets of Paris, Tokyo, and small-town Canada. It was a much needed escape.

I only lasted four months in China, but I survived. At the time, I felt trapped and completely alone, but I made it through. I learned a lot of different things, like how to navigate through a sea of people on rush hour trains, how to order food with only hand gestures, and how to feel totally lost and make the best of it. I wouldn’t exchange that for anything.

I recently caught up with a friend and was recalling some of my stories from China. In this particular tale, I was explaining how I had ordered some food on the street and couldn’t determine what I was eating – was it chicken? Fish? Lizard? Rat? It could have been any of the above, but my insides told me it was the latter. At the time, it was a truly traumatizing meal, but in telling the story to my friend, we both had tears running down our faces from laughing so hard.

From this experience, I’ve realized that it’s the struggles in life that provide us with the opportunities to push ourselves – to see what we are really capable of.  While in China, I learned a lot about what makes me happy and what makes me miserable, and what I can do to get by. To be sure, feeling overwhelmed, lost, and lonely are nothing new to the human condition – but having to deal with these issues, on my own, made me more resilient.

I now also have a great cocktail party story about how I ate rat in China.

For further reading, check out the article called “What Suffering Does” by the NY Times columnist, David Brooks, who inspired this post.