It was my first semester of college out-of-state.
Final exams were upon me, and I felt hopelessly buried in work.
If my professors had filled a dump truck to the brim with final papers, oral and written exams, presentations, reading assignments, etc., and dumped it in front of me in one massive heap, I wouldn’t have known the difference.
All I wanted during that nerve-racking week was to go home, get into my own bed, pull the covers over my head, and sleep.
More than anything, I wanted the semester to end. I wanted my degree to end. I was impatient to be done. Finished. Graduated.
But you know what?
Despite all my anxiety and stress, I passed all my finals with flying colors.
Despite everything, I look back on those days and realize that I spent so much time worrying about things that were out of my control that I didn’t even realize how good my life was until that chapter was over.
Now that I’ve graduated, I look back on those days with longing.
Really.
Because, even with all the stress, I realize now those were some of the best days of my life.
I look back and marvel at how I was able to simply study and spend time with friends, without having to worry about serious adult responsibilities such as finding meaningful work, buying a house, etc., yet.
I was so fortunate to have had that opportunity, and I will always look back on it with gratitude.
But when I was in the middle of that life-changing chapter, I was far from grateful.
I spent so much time focusing on what could potentially go wrong that I forgot to focus on everything that was going right.
Love your life right now
The lesson I’m learning from this experience is that what we find tough in the moment may turn out to be a great gift in retrospect.
What you and I perceive to be mountains of work in the moment may turn into a triumph when it’s over — when we look back with pride and see that, all along, we were thriving. Circumstances aren’t always easy, but if you focus on the good things happening in this moment, you can love your life regardless. Everyone can.
So now, when I wonder how on earth I’ll get through something that seems impossibly difficult, I try to remind myself that what I have now is a gift.
I try to remind myself that, one day, I will most likely look back on the challenges of my current life and wish I could re-live them.
I try to remind myself that even stressful situations, large and small, can teach me something that will help me later on in life.
Because without those difficulties, I would never really understand what I have to be grateful for in the first place.
This article first appeared on Medium.
