a small space in this busy world

Hello hello! How are you? I am so glad you are here, reading this and thinking with me. I don't know why you are here, or what you are looking for, but then, you probably do not know either. I guess I will explain to you what I am doing here, what my reasons are for creating this site, and together we can go from there. 

 

This website is targeted to college students. Its purpose is to encourage and help us achieve distance from the everyday anxieties that constantly nag at us, because of the social media centered, fast-paced environment that we live in. 

 

The world is a crazy place. For humans, at least. And particularly for young people alive today—in this fast-paced, forward-thinking society that is centered on technology and social media, on numbers and images and other superficial measurements of worth. I am a 20-year-old college student, and the thoughts and questions that often consume me are about grades, "success", what will come tomorrow and what will come next year.

 

 

 

Though it's not necessarily a bad thing that my mind (and likely that of those around me) is often preoccupied by concrete details - numbers and grades and plans for the future - I believe that fixating on these things becomes a problem when this fixation leads to stress, anxiety, or any other form of discomfort. At various times in my life I have faced discomfort as a result of trivial preoccupations, thus I have repeatedly tried to explore way to distance myself from these things. 

 

When I was in high school I found myself uncomfortably vulnerable to the ups and downs of the stressful social and academic environment around me. To combat this discomfort, I experimented with meditation. By taking time out of my days to be fully present in a moment, and focus on the constant center within me, I was able to temporarily escape from the fluctuations of my external reality. I will share my experiences with meditation and mindfulness in various places on this site, and would love to start a conversation about techniques others have used to find peace and stability in their lives. 

 

Last year, as a sophomore in college, I experienced repeated bouts of anxiety during the first few weeks of the semester. For several nights in a row I could not sleep. I did not know what was causing my anxiety, so I began to write in a free-form, stream-of-consciousness manner. This insomnia-triggered writing evolved into a extended meditation about my past experiences and their impact on my current perspective on life. Through writing, I discovered connections and came to realizations about myself, and these discoveries helped me combat the difficulties I was facing at that time. Ever since then, I have turned to writing whenever I have felt confused or overwhelmed. In my "original pieces" section you can read a sample of this piece as well as some of my musings from the summer, about love and soulmates. I hope that my writing, which led me to attain a little bit of clarity about myself and this world, will inspire you to engage with your own thoughts and minds.  

 

My goal of this site is to help other students gain distance and perspective from their crazy lives. In the "conversation board" tab, I hope to create a space where we can talk together, about our lives, our priorities, and the distractions that may complicate them. I hope you will join in on the conversation, by commenting on my posts with responses to the questions I pose.