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Hi everyone,
Just some thoughts I wanted to share today.
Does anybody else get to senior year of college and just...dwell on everything from the last three years, every mistake, every good and bad thing. Forever. To the point were you can't think about the now.
Also- I just realized this. Our online personalities are often so different than how we are in real life- you would never guess how shy I actually am IRL. I post on here so much bc anonymous forums are...so easy to use. It's like socializing w/o the stress.
I’m the same on here as I am irl. If anything, I’m more reserved on here.
I also try not to dwell on things. You can’t change the past.
@mwsapphire
I feel similarly. Pretty much the same as in person.
In terms of dwelling on the past, yeah it's a real struggle. You've been trained for years to learn from your mistakes, identify weaknesses, and figure out how to approach problems better. Obsessing over this, although a boon to academics, will ravage your mental health. Do what you can to gain correct perspective: you're flawed. We all are. Thinking about your mistakes is only helpful if it's going to help you avoid making them in the future. Otherwise it's morbid introspection.
I suffer from this greatly. Most days are battles. Sometimes the best solution is to just distract yourself until you are more calm. Pick up a new hobby, learn a language, do a crossword puzzle. It might feel like laziness, but sometimes it's what's actually best for you. And talk to friends you trust. Listen to them when they tell you what they value about you. Who cares what academics think? There is much more to you than activities, grades, and essays.
There’s a difference between learning from your past and dwelling on your past. In the military we are constantly reviewing “lessons learned” and trying to improve. It’s when you can’t move on or focus on how to improve because you’re stuck focusing on your mistakes that it can hurt your mental health. Learning from your mistakes is important for growth. Dwelling on them is not. Gotta let go.
But for me...what's especially scary, is realizing all the good things that happened as a direct ( and less easy to figure out-indirect cause of those mistakes), and then realizing I had to make those mistakes or undergrad wouldn't be the same.Yeah, exactly. I may have read myself into the situation a bit. If I wasn't clear, I meant that academically we learn the process of learning, but it sometimes goes unregulated in our lives and we can't move on from the mistakes. I agree with what you said.
But for me...what's especially scary, is realizing all the good things that happened as a direct ( and less easy to figure out-indirect cause of those mistakes), and then realizing I had to make those mistakes or undergrad wouldn't be the same.
I'l give you the cliffnotes version- I withdrew and retook orgo. Sometimes I dwell on it- then I realize every good thing that happened because of it. One indirect thing- I took this elective last fall, stem cell biology, and I chose to take it as a junior and not a senior. I didn't realize it wouldn't fit into my schedule senior year, but I think part of the reason I took it was i took Orgo II fall of junior year. That professor was amazing, and the best influence I could have had at that point. Sometimes I think if I never retook orgo, I may not have taken his class, and geez. That would have made college very,very different.
I was doing reallly poorly, studied for that class like gen chem, sorry I shoulda made that clear.Why did you withdraw?
I was doing reallly poorly, studied for that class like gen chem, sorry I shoulda made that clear.
So anyway, retaking kinda indirectly led to meeting the best prof I've ever had who was the exact influence I needed at that stage of my life. As much as I dwell on that mistake, it almost scares me that it may have resulted in me meeting this professor.
I’m the same on here as I am irl. If anything, I’m more reserved on here.
I also try not to dwell on things. You can’t change the past.
Hard to say. I think a lot of people think they are the same, but it's hard to really say that. That could be a matter of intent, in that we don't feel we are acting differently or trying to act differently. But likely you are in some way, or even if not, likely people view you differently online than if it was on the phone, skype, in person, etc. It can be surprising how we can feel like we are "being ourselves" online, only to be vastly underestimating how "not yourself" you are coming off or how differently people are viewing you than what you are used to.
I am 100% genuine and sincere here, and mostly speak my mind entirely here and in person, but I know that I am received differently in both scenarios. Quite so.
I was doing reallly poorly, studied for that class like gen chem, sorry I shoulda made that clear.
So anyway, retaking kinda indirectly led to meeting the best prof I've ever had who was the exact influence I needed at that stage of my life. As much as I dwell on that mistake, it almost scares me that it may have resulted in me meeting this professor.
So you were doing very poorly in the class, realized you were studying for it the wrong way, then withdrew and retook it and did better? How is that a mistake? The mistake would have been to continue doing the same thing and ended up with a poor grade and then having to retake it anyway.
I'm wondering if it's.... sometimes it sorta disturbs me the idea of "how easily" my life could have gone onto a different and not as "awesome" of a track, had it not been for something that I might have otherwise avoided as a mistake, but was a mistake I made nonetheless. Hard to explain.
I think it might be trying to reconcile judgment and choice vs the chances of fate or forces outside our control.
Like, how am I to navigate to the best outcome if avoiding mistakes, which of course is natural to do, would keep me from it? The reality is that you can't and you can't really know. You can't know which "mistakes" will have good outcomes and which bad for sure. We go through life then not really knowing what is a "mistake" and what is a happy accident. Could this challenge feelings of control we have over life? Sure. Is it a natural part of life, and one we must wrestle with and learn to face? Yeah.
OP, for all you know, if you hadn't met that professor, you might have met someone and had an even "better" experience. At the same time, it's very hard to say what effects or "life trajectory" or events or whatever have, until you're basically looking back on your life at any point, and the story isn't really over until you're dead/about to die. Even then, cause/effect isn't clear.
Maybe meeting that professor will seem like a really important factor in getting into medical school. You will think your dreams are coming true. Then you suffer a workplace injury that leaves you with incomplete use of your hands and feet and you live the rest of your life in daily pain. What then? But had you not gone to medical school, how would you feel then?
This sort of thinking is basically madness.
I also believe that we are "different people" with different people, in the sense that each of us is extremely complex, and then you put us in certain scenarios and with different people, and we call upon different parts of ourselves, not even consciously. It's natural. Some of the time, it's not even who you were to begin with, you learned or grew in some way to change for the demand or where you put yourself.I guess. The only difference really is that my sense of humor is much dirtier and darker in real life.
I was doing reallly poorly, studied for that class like gen chem, sorry I shoulda made that clear.
So anyway, retaking kinda indirectly led to meeting the best prof I've ever had who was the exact influence I needed at that stage of my life. As much as I dwell on that mistake, it almost scares me that it may have resulted in me meeting this professor.
I also believe that we are "different people" with different people, in the sense that each of us is extremely complex, and then you put us in certain scenarios and with different people, and we call upon different parts of ourselves, not even consciously. It's natural. Some of the time, it's not even who you were to begin with, you learned or grew in some way to change for the demand or where you put yourself.
SDN me is not the same as Dr. Me or daughter me or pro femme domme me. Some of that is situational, by choice, and makes total sense, that "of course you're not the same, but they're all you!"
Yes and no, in my view.
This idea of being different people with different people, I picked up from a movie. I think it was Playing by Heart. If we are different people with different people because of what they bring out in us, then we have to ask ourselves if we like who we are when we are with someone or in a situation. To take it further, one might say that part of what we love about someone isn't just who they are, but who we are when we are with them.
Yeah what sucks is that I'm so much me online, that I just can't quit on SDN and it hurts sometimes, especially since I think it's quite different in real life. That or it's easier for the haters to avoid me IRL than on SDNMy wife would tell you I’m pretty much the same with everyone lol. But I get what you’re saying.
Eh, I wouldn't go that far. I don't know what OP is going for or needs in this situation.Not to sound dismissive, but it sounds like you have too much time on your hands if you're thinking about different forks your life could have taken and worrying about what would have happened it they didn't. Like she said, you can't know what would or wouldn't have happened. Maybe you have trouble focusing on what's in front of you?
YES I totally do this. Feeling feelings makes me feel human again and then I can process and move on with my day without compartmentalizing and having it turn into a whole "thing" later.An exercise I learned, was to take time to feel feelings. Don't try to distract yourself, don't do anything you would typically do to take yourself away from it. You can go sit in your closet. Just be silent and still. Maybe journal. Set a timer if you wish, so you don't feel like the discomfort will never end. That is a way to ensure this stays productive, because you will only be spending so much time on unbottling these feelings. Focus exactly on the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Acknowledge them. Know that they are OK and normal. There are no bad feelings. You deserve positive affirmations no matter what these feelings are, or what they tell you.
You know, with my Type B play line citations
I always joke my cats don't allow houseplants. They make the rules, after all.
Seeing Bayes' Theorem on exams