Coping with the Paradigm of College Life Problems

CEBU, Philippines - The paradigm. Wake up. Take a bath. Change. Eat. Brush. Kiss your parents goodbye. The day is just getting started. When you’re a hundred steps away from the door, you remember that you forgot to bring some of the stuff your scary college physics professor required you to bring. You closed your eyes and did a couple of sighs –as if the world stopped. Then you walk back to where you started. Retracing your semi-invisible footsteps. You notice that in each step you are gaining weight –figuratively. The door welcomes you “Oh, you’re back”. You didn’t mind it. Inside your room, searching for what you’ve left, passing by the mirror many many times, the mirror asks you “What’s wrong?” It echoes in your thoughts. “What’s wrong?” Your head had become a cave. Once again, you know for yourself that it’s going to be another bad day. A heartbeat away from the door. A girl which you call your mom screamed “You’re late!” …  And the bats hanging upside-down inside your head, their supersonic sound waves bounce “This is not the first time.” Your college life had become nothing but a set of problems that are getting worse. The paradigm.

Each day is SSDD. Same Stuff Different Day. Everyone goes in that kind of impasse once in a while or most in their college life. You arrived. Inside the classroom –another set of problems again. You lack motivation because you’re very late – so you’re not listening. Your eyes fixed on your shoes. During the class, the Physics Professor calls you once, twice, trice, and lost count. Everyone in the room shot you with point 38 caliber-like stares. Their eyes as their guns, judgments as their bullets. A concerned classmate taps you. You’re brought back to reality –for a less of a second. Mr. Physics Professor wants you to answer the equation seen on the board. Just like a Nazi prisoner, you stand and walk rigidly to the front. When you’re halfway done with your walk, you look at the board. It says:

“Equipontentional Surfaces: Let the equation F(x,y,z)=c represent a set of non-intersecting surfaces. (Each c corresponds to a different surface.) What is the condition that this is a set of equipotential surfaces? In other words, can we define such potential V(c) that its Laplacian vanishes?”

As you’re reading it, your eyes form another world. . .

You enter another world.

* * *

This is the paradigm. Your routine. SSDD. Your own personal prison. But for how long are you going to put yourself in jail?

 There are major roots to this big tree of problem. Problems breed problems. In your college life, it’s inevitable to experience this. Of course, you are familiar with how hard it is to cope with school’s stressors dealing with troublesome feelings such a anxiety, anger, frustration and depression, previous emotional traumas –having your heart pulverized, and more. This causes self-defeating behaviors. You defeat yourself. It causes poor academic performance, thus boiling more anxiety. It has a very bad effect to your mental and physical health. This drives you crazy. It triggers your need for alcohol and drugs or some emo stuff. Most of the time, sad to say, this is how college students cope –making things worse than it is.

   College life problems are always there. But it’s not about the problem –it’s about how you react –respond to the problem. Reacting is different from responding. To react is to scream. To respond is to ponder, stay cool and choose. That is the last of human freedoms - the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances. What I’ve said is a little piece ofLogotherapy(Finding Meaning) by Viktor Frankl. You can always visit your college school counselors. They would be more than happy to discuss things with you. Counselors are always ready to put aside their own trash so that your trash can fill in. I would just like to end this with logotherapeutic words, “When we are no longer able to change a situation –we are challenged to change ourselves.” Yes. The only way to stop the paradigm is to challenge it. Round one . . . Fight . . Wait . . . Rest first . . .  Day is over –the paradigm. (CONTRIBUTED)