Thursday, May 15, 2014

Letting Go: My Last Blog

If I have learned anything throughout the past 18 years of my life (and especially the past four that I've spent in high school), and if I had to teach my children something significant, it would the importance of letting go. This lesson has proved its importance in my academic experiences as well as in my personal life. I remember during my sophomore year, I was in the process of writing a short story that was going absolutely nowhere. I kept tweaking different sentences and minor ideas, but it wasn't getting any better. It wasn't until my teacher told me to "let it go" that anything improved. I kept trying to improve something that was clearly stuck, and it wasn't until I let go of those ideas and cleared the way for a new concept that I was able to write freely and create something of some worth. This idea has stuck with me since that fateful day of my Sophomore year, and I've carried it into most of my classes and have improved significantly as a student.
But the concept of letting go has also proved its importance in my personal life. I've always loved traveling. I've traveled to Spain twice a year since I was born, I've been to China, Mexico, France, and plan to visit Denmark this summer. I never had a problem with traveling as a child, but for some reason, once I turned 16 or so, I became somewhat attached to my life here and found it more difficult to travel. And when I got my first boyfriend, I found it even more difficult. Every little attachment to home made me slightly less open to exploring other parts of the world and of myself, and even when I was spending time in Spain and in China, I didn't have the best attitude and often spent time thinking about what I was missing at that moment at home instead of enjoying where I was. I couldn't quite figure out why I wasn't having as good of a time as I'd had when I was younger. It wasn't until sometime this year on my trip to Spain that I once again stumbled upon the idea of letting go. How could I possibly have a good time or learn anything about the world when I was attaching myself to home? I realized that while loving home and the people there is important, I needed to be able to be able to detach, let go, and become independent in order to be able to truly explore the amazing places that I was visiting, and in order to learn more about the world and about myself. The ideas of letting go and being here now are things that have improved my independence and my overall happiness significantly, and are concepts that I believe everybody should consider when trying to improve themselves.