What should I do?

Figuring It All Out

To give credit to the sadness, it makes sense. You are experiencing what many people feel but don't talk about. University can be a very competitive, isolating place. We're made to believe that we go off to higher learning to have fun and grow, but ironically, it requires discomfort to grow. Therefore, your discomfort in any fashion is leading away from the old and into the new, this is what your mind interprets to be something deep, something sad. You see, if you say you are sad, or you interpret your discomfort as something unfair or to be righted versus something required on the road to growth, we seek to remedy our feeling. When you start to remedy pain instead of focus on where you're going, you head nowhere.

So, there's the question, where do you want to go? What do you value in life that would lead you to a place you want? Once you know what your carrot is you no longer have to live life merely looking back to avoid the stick. In short, go after what you want, don't live to avoid pain. 

Commitment, is to be wholly invested into some purpose. When you commit to something you commit to the consequences as well. We don't like that part, but there are consequences and we have to ask ourselves if those consequences, both good and bad, are worth the changes we are making. What, then, are you doing all of this for, this pain, this loneliness while at University?

Look, there's a lot of coping skills/therapeutic techniques/talk therapy wisdom that may make you feel better, but I'll tell you this; nothing changes a person more than learning how to sit with their feelings and thoughts without giving in to them and reacting. It is because of the work I've done and thousands of hours with people that I can say these things. Do not waste time indulging a judgement or narrative or possible conclusion about yourself. Let the emotions pass, thoughts pass, all of it passes unless you make the active choice to latch on to your interpretation of interpersonal feelings.

Get to know yourself, your thoughts and identify what you are feeling. Tell me, can you identify what you are thinking/feeling right now? Can you tell me where your head is now or why did you do something before because you may have felt bad? Anytime you indulge a negative self-perception or powerless title you give up all your power to the thoughts.

You have thoughts, they don't define you. You have experiences, they don't define you either. You are a context, constantly changing and growing. Identify and let go of stagnant beliefs about yourself, talk to people, get out of your own head. What you are is going to get uncomfortable by doing what you care about, instead of avoiding what you think is scary. 

This too shall pass.