Awise professor told my class the other day: “People hate change. You know how I know? Facebook.”
It was a simple statement, but a profound one at that. We’ve all seen it — Facebook moves the “What’s on your mind?” bar over an inch and your newsfeed explodes in outrage and curses called down upon Mark Zuckerberg.
At that point, people rarely take a step back from their computers and say, “Hey, change happens.”
With graduation rapidly approaching, change has been on my mind a lot lately. Suddenly, a spontaneous Frozen D’s run becomes my “last Frozen D’s run” (even if that’s probably not the case). I find myself oddly dedicated to staying out until curfew and even occasionally tempted to sit down on a Harding swing — before I imagine the type of PDA that most likely occurred there moments before.
The truth is, the moment I put on that oh-so-fashionable grad cap, I will ultimately say farewell to the comforts I have come to rely on the past four years. The people I have been surrounded by — from my closest friends to the nameless guy I climb over en route to my chapel seat each day — they are all about to change.
The smell of pop-tarts in the air will be no more, and a “free” meal will no longer be just a caf swipe away. It’s a hard reality to face, but it’s a real one at that.
But instead of weepily trying to hold on to the many “lasts” I will experience these next few weeks, I have found that focusing on the “firsts” I am about to encounter is not only the key to near-graduation sanity, but the secret to really living.
Humans are made for change — we do it from the day we’re born. Whether it’s in height, intellect or inches around the waist, we’re moving forward from the moment we enter this world.
Although the backdrop of your college experience may remain pretty consistent for four years, your lives never stop changing during that period of time. Your best friends from your freshman mixers pictures probably look pretty different from the best friends you have now. But you were probably pretty happy then, and you are most likely still pretty happy now.
As much as people hate change, living is dealing with change every day and learning to look forward to those changes. After a while, no one longs for the old Facebook anymore, they simply embrace the newness and press on.
So while my days of midnight Sonic trips, function-date shopping and playing hooky from chapel may be numbered, I look forward to life beyond the bubble. But as I enter the unknown there is one thing I know for certain — I will take with me the memories I’ve made at Harding and hold on to the people I have made them with.
