Hey all,

I've been in college for almost a month and a half now, and I've noticed something I have mixed feelings about:

Some people are too self-aware.

Now, being self-aware isn't a huge problem. It's important to monitor yourself, your thinking, and the strength of your social connections. Self-awareness can help you decide what aspects of yourself to work on, which skills you can depend on, and give you an idea of how to best interact with your peers.

However, I think some people (me included) get so entrenched in their idea of who they are that they neglect to think about what they could be. Sometimes, we think so much about the objective truths of our situations that we forget that we actually have control of how we feel about them.

In short, I'm just telling you that:

Let's start telling ourselves stories that we want to hear. For example, if you had to tell a group of kids about your life, what would you like to say? What would they want to hear? Were your college years "busy, stressful, and demoralizing" or "busy, but inspiring, eye-opening, and the best years of your life." The choice for your outlook is yours, and the funny thing is that the story you tell yourself is the same one you'll believe.

Unfortunately, we're not always blessed with people who tell us that we belong, that we're capable, and that we're enjoying what we do. So, our job is to become that person for ourselves and pretend we're succeeding until we become who we desire to be.

But go ahead, be cynical. In the end, we are just lying to ourselves to try and keep that positive outlook. I, and many others accept that. But understand that the bet we're taking is that the realist who learns to feel good about their work always beats the cynic who complains about the situation.

Because we are lying to ourselves to feel good, but feeling good about our studies makes us friendlier with our professors, funnier with our colleagues, less stressed, more successful, and happier about the journey we've taken with our lives. By lying to ourselves, we're stepping into that positive feedback loop.

And look, if we're doing something we choose to do, might as well choose to be happy about it too.

Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

-Ethan

Things I'm Enjoying:

📚 Books - Both Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon and How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens were driving influences on this blog post. Specifically, they've both helped me change how I read from a slow, careful style to a quicker one that helps me find and analyze the best, most unique ideas more often. If that sounds like an intriguing idea to you, I suggest you check them out!

👨‍💻 Tech - This is a very college-focused buy, but I think a portable speaker is a must-buy for movie/YouTube nights with friends. For one, it makes all the media you're consuming sound so much better, and it also helps remedy those feelings of exclusion people can sometimes feel when they can neither hear nor see what's playing on the tiny laptops you use as TV screens.

💻 Website - Chess.com - I like chess a bit, so I've found Chess.com's puzzles a great way of taking a small brain break while keeping my brain in that critical thinking mode. Funnily enough, the fact that I don't pay for the premium version of the site is also a blessing because I can only play so many puzzles before the site tells me I have to pay (which is my signal to get back to work).