I put it into perspective.
I'm in this life with a purpose: and while I don't KNOW the purpose, I can live my life purposefully and do my dharma, or duty, properly. right now, that dharma consists of surviving 4 years of college, learning college material, and obtaining both my high school diploma and my college bachelor's degree & minor certificate while helping and bringing light to the lives I see along the way. I think the organizations I have chosen to be part of and the things I had done in high school towards human rights reflect that I'm a very "big-picture" person. If things are trivial, what's the point? I'm one for saving the world, and making myself see that writing a mundane lab report about bacteria was a step along the way to achieving my goals and dreams was hard, but helped me get through it.
There truly ISN'T great value in a college degree education in society anymore. It's now just another stepping stone. Another rite of passage one must attain in order to enter rightfully into adulthood and job-hunting or professional schools or graduate school! MY FUTURE! where you go for that stepping stone degree, i now know, only reflects wants and needs and means. I am at USC now because the type of education is suited to my personality: I like learning about lots of things deeply. I like deep neuroscientific research that ultimately helps others, and I also like directly helping others. I struggle daily with "why should I write a paper about "Othello"?" but, then I realize that writing that paper about "Othello" will help me learn to think deeply about things, and thinking deeply about what people are trying to convey, even Shakespeare from so long ago, helps one to use those skills in present day empathy and communication. It would have a role in my analysis of scientific papers in that I could look beyond the facts on the page, and see the scientist behind that writing... Still, doesn't make it any easier to write. And another reason I'm at USC instead of a more professional school like that of which my friends are pondering is because I like to think. I am an academic. I am not well-suited to clocking in and what I deem a purposeless existence. I'm like my mother in many ways, but I am not like her in that I can be content to bring an optimistic spirit to a job that I only moderately enjoy. I envy the way she took on banking and made it something that she enjoys doing everyday. Making it more about connecting with people and trying to help them even when times are tough and she has to push accounts in the worst financial crisis this country has seen in a long time. When people don't have that money to put in an account. I feel like I need to learn from her, and I am. I don't necessarily love every aspect of college: the vast crowds of people who don't know your name, the stress and emphasis placed on grades that won't matter once you go on in life: life is based on living-- not values like A, B, C, D, & F!, the general masses that drink and smoke and be immoral on weekends just because they can be, the feeling that nobody cares--because that's true for the majority. people are very self-involved. empathy is hard to come by. opening my heart to others and helping others even when they are using you or are not true to you is not in my beliefs. I am friendly to everyone, and I don't mean to be judgemental, but I am totally that way. It's not something I can help: I just analyze people. The way they act towards others and how they value their self reflects so much in ways of how as a friend I would be valued by them. Making friends here is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I mean, initially, everyone was new and a "friend", but then assessing who is actually a "friend" and who is just another run of the mill noncarer is much harder than one thinks. I was really feeling like I had shed that facade that I had in high school-- that block that keeps me from interacting with others that I KNOW are different than myself. Now I can break that wall, and I can interact closely with others --but that difference doesn't go away. You can't fake reality and true friendship. If people don't mix, they just don't mix. It's like me and "Groups". I had a good "group" back in middle and early high school that I thought that I knew was mine and that I belonged. I knew that some of the values and things that I held dear were so foreign to these so-called friends of mine, but I didn't share and accept and discuss. I was young. I was scared to scare them or that they'd think I was weird. I felt the need to be like every other kid in that group. I wore things I wouldn't normally wear. I said things I wouldn't normally say. I watched things I wouldn't normally watch. I was part of things that I enjoyed, but that didn't feel like they fit with me. I mean, everyone must do that once or twice in their lives. Get that good yet scary feeling of trying something new, testing the waters, but if you're sure that it isn't you--don't do it. The values that I did appreciate in my old "group" were that of loyalty, straight-edgeness, and fun before stress. Looking back, I definitely would have-been part of that group. It helped define me in that I wasn't following what all the Indian girls were doing. I was different. I liked different. I liked that this group appreciated what I appreciated, but at the end of the day, really deep things NEVER were brought out. I hid the things that made me different from the others in this group instead of spotlighting them and helping my friends to understand me more. I didn't explain my faith to them. I didn't share my dance with them more than just performing. I didn't help them to understand what ties me to my homeland and my family and WHY my family was so close. I didn't share my secrets. I made up some secrets. I didn't want to admit that I felt weird talking about liking boys because I didn't really think about them like that yet because of my familial values. I didn't show pride in my family's closeness and spending time together in public though now that I look back, I realize we had something that not many families do anymore. I didn't stick steadfastly behind my morals and I grew from that, but I also now have learned better. I have learned my lessons. I know that I want to share my deeper feelings with my friends. I want them to know how I think, why, and what makes me who I am. I feel like some of my friends never got it. I feel like some of them never did.
I want to make a difference in this world. I want to affect change in some meaningful way that shows that I had a stake in helping improve humanity in some form while I was here. I want the world to have shifted in SOME FORM since I came onto this planet and remember my name. Not physically, or like being in history books or something, no no. I want something simpler. I want those who I have met to at least have a smile on their face when they think about me and what I have done. As my first semester of college winds down, this question of PURPOSE and WHY and WHAT NEXT? have been just taunting me in my head. I know my plan: phd neuroscience, post-doc, etc onward and onward til I achieve that professorship and lab under my name, but how does that benefit humanity and human rights? how does my working on neuroscientific matters affect those who cannot voice themselves as I am doing or those in poverty or homeless or hungry or in NEED of some help and support and smiles and hugs. I know I want to work in diseases and disorders. I know that I want to help people become better versions of themselves, but is this really done just through research? I love the field of neuroscience, and I urge all scientific people to go into that field, and I am definitely mostly getting my degree in those studies still, but my minor, I am clear, must reflect some action. I want to do the non-profits minor now because it seems to be with purpose built in. The people who take the minor most likely want to work in non-profit organizations. I feel like these organizations do so much for the world. ASPIRE is one of them, and in many ways so is Amnesty International and the UN and its multiple organizations. The 84 is a non-profit too, I think but by way of the government. (?) I feel like academically learning about nonprofits and volunteering from the perspective of 'how-to' in some fashion would help me to form this purposes I want in my life. I want to affect change in a large manner. I want it to be lasting. I don't know how yet, but Hanuman is guiding my path. I will make a difference.
xoxo,
maithreyi
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