Relationships by Haren

Relationships by Haren - December 2022 Scholarship Essay

August 6th, 2022. The day I turned 20. To say 2022 was a turbulent adventure would be putting it in its mildest form. Now, this is not to say other people haven’t experienced hardships and the complaints I bring about you would look bleak in comparison. However through every hardship, and every somber experience there’s a light at the end. The hardest part is determining whether or not that light was a mere mirage and the lessons learned are in vain, or will they be fruitful, and only time will answer that.

Circling back to the date I opened, it was such an interesting time for me. See living at home while still, a college student provides this weird limbo. It is the defacto equivalent of playing the beta version of what we call life. You pay some bills, but truth be told your job will never come close to the equivalent of your parents, hence the fact I and many others are writing this essay. But throughout this early release version of adulthood, you learn a few things very quickly, things younger you would’ve never fathomed, but throughout all that you become stronger.

I gained an understanding and appreciation of my parents during this period. Throughout this time I was truthfully experiencing difficulties fitting into my school. 2021-2022 was my first year at my new institution after transferring the year before, and this transitional period was rocky, to say the least. What I considered friends at one point ended up being anything but. This transition between K-12 schooling vs higher education is a massive ideological shift. You’re friends we’re your friends throughout high school, now with different organizations, internships, and classes themselves, relationships are never easy. All this made me understand and appreciate my parents that much more, as I know their workload and their plates are just as full. Between raising kids, and providing and feeding them, the struggle allows for minimal downtime.

All this saying leads up to my overarching point that I not only need to pick and choose which relationships are worth watering, so I can do well in those relationships I value but also cut off the negative ones from my life. As we get older we simply don’t have time for people outside of our family as often as we do in college. College truly is the driving force of this weird in between that I referenced earlier. The first time most young people are independent yet, it is somewhat of a sheltered independency. All in all, I hope going into this new year I learn which relationships are worth maintaining and which are worth letting go of. It’s a thin line in today’s society that is a hyper-centric society on relationships, so learning to differentiate is a huge challenge.