Why It's Okay to NOT do Everything

Optical Illusion Time! Look at the above images for a couple seconds, remember what you see. Then avert your eyes, look again, and try to see something different. These two images are pretty famous, and if you’re a 90’s kid like me, you’ll remember these from the back of Apple Jacks (I’m 2-2 on cereal references so far, let’s keep it going!) I’m sorry to mess with your eyes, but I promise it’ll all make sense once the analogy comes together. Fellow students (only a couple, no need to worry, ACT people that read this) here come up to me, a little concerned/worried about what they won’t get to do everything, that people will miss them if they don’t go out, or that they want a study abroad experience and feel it isn’t one if you don’t do what everyone else is doing.

(See where the illusion’s gonna come into play yet?? I know, I’m excited too)

The thing about those images is that it’s one picture, that can take the form of two different things It all depends on perspective; if you want to see the old woman and a three pronged fork, you can, and if you want to see the other side, that’s possible too. The only thing that’s IMPOSSIBLE about these images is to focus on both simultaneously. “But Martin… What does this have to do with going abroad?” Glad you asked, [insert your name here]! I’ll give this my best shot.

The thing about being abroad/being a young adult/being human is that desire to have common experiences with others. There’s no point diving on the floor for a point in a meaningless ping-pong game (me), or playing enough table tennis to make you physically exhausted (see last parentheses) if there’s no one to share the laughter with afterwards. Internal satisfaction at hitting a ball can only take you so far; otherwise we’d all play chess against the computer and play tennis against a wall. 

However, there’s also no point staying at a club that you’re not having fun at (nitraM did that one). No one’s gonna be there to look back on your life to make your memories more exciting; it’s part of growing up that you become responsible for how you have fun.

The point is, we all have our limits, we all have an idea of what people we really like, what we like to do with those people, and (most importantly) how long we can hang with those people without becoming unpleasant. If you don’t have any sort of a grasp on those answers by the time you go abroad, that’s alright, but try to seek out your personal answers to those questions. Feel comfortable knowing that your answers will be different, even from the people you love most. Give yourself time to recharge your social batteries, and you’ll have a better sense of how to best maximize your time with people, either abroad or at home.

I wanna end on a (kinda/sorta) personal note. It’s really okay to not do something; I promise it is. It’s okay for other people to have inside jokes with your close friends (it probably wouldn’t even be funny if they recounted it, otherwise your friends should go into comedy). It's okay to miss a party/gathering/drinking session. Being awesome, being dapper, being swagged out, or being whatever sort of “cool” you aspire to be doesn’t come with pretending you’re too cool to try anything that you may fail at, and it DEFINITELY doesn’t come from buying all the Hispanic kids in high school two packs of Orbit Sweet Mint gum so you could sit at their table (as they continued to exclude you by speaking in Spanish). Being cool is about owning up to what you were, being comfortable with who you are, and being confident in the person you’re becoming. Nothing more, nothing less. 

P.S. I’ll get into touristy/school stuff later, but I keep coming up with topics that are more far-ranging than Greece. If this keeps happening, I’ll just make the posts longer, just in case people want to know what classes I’m taking, my impeccable table tennis record, or anything like that.