Stuff Happens: Maintaining Perspective
Not everything is going to go well for you in college. It's the rule of life - nothing's ever perfect. Some of those things that go wrong will be your fault. Others will be the fault of others. And still more will be the result of misunderstandings.
That's why it's so important to keep perspective in mind when thinking about your college experience. Just because things don't work out the way you want them to doesn't make you a bad person. Even if someone flat out says bad things about you, it doesn't make them true.
What's one of the ways to keep a good perspective on life even when bad things happen? Find someone you trust and listen to their opinion above the opinions of others. For example, if someone says something bad about me, or if something bad happens to me, I go straight to my roommate, my parents, or my sister for their take on the situation. I trust their opinions, since they know me well and have known me for many years now. (Read Yahoo!'s article on how to tell when you can trust someone here...I generally use #5 as my criterion)
This is not to say that you will always be the person who is right in a given situation - it's as important to recognize when you're in the wrong (after which an immediate apology is in order) as it is to recognize when you're in the right. And even if you are in the right, there's always something you can learn from the situation. The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius has a quote that roughly translates as follows. "If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself." Essentially, the point of this is that we can learn from everyone. Likewise, we can learn from every situation, whether good or bad.
Why did I devote an entire article to this? Because while it's something that happens to every college student, whether neurotypical or with ASD, it's even more likely to happen to you, whether because of difficulties with social skills on your part, or being targeted by others because you're "different" on the part of others. Difference is something that makes people profoundly uncomfortable and, as you've likely noticed in your life, people tend to associate different with something that needs to be corrected, whether through constructive or destructive means. It's also very easy to internalize these situations and take them to mean that you yourself are a bad person, rather than a person in a bad situation. That's why this is so important to understand.
This is probably the point of the article where I should end with something inspiring like "stay the path!" or something humorous like "don't let the haters get you down!" Instead, though, I'm going to end on a pragmatic, and far more useful tone.
Stuff happens. What matters most is not what's happened in the past, but how we handle it in the present. Keeping a good perspective on the situation, which can be done with the help of people you trust, can help you learn from a bad situation and benefit from it.
Good luck!
That's why it's so important to keep perspective in mind when thinking about your college experience. Just because things don't work out the way you want them to doesn't make you a bad person. Even if someone flat out says bad things about you, it doesn't make them true.
What's one of the ways to keep a good perspective on life even when bad things happen? Find someone you trust and listen to their opinion above the opinions of others. For example, if someone says something bad about me, or if something bad happens to me, I go straight to my roommate, my parents, or my sister for their take on the situation. I trust their opinions, since they know me well and have known me for many years now. (Read Yahoo!'s article on how to tell when you can trust someone here...I generally use #5 as my criterion)
This is not to say that you will always be the person who is right in a given situation - it's as important to recognize when you're in the wrong (after which an immediate apology is in order) as it is to recognize when you're in the right. And even if you are in the right, there's always something you can learn from the situation. The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius has a quote that roughly translates as follows. "If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself." Essentially, the point of this is that we can learn from everyone. Likewise, we can learn from every situation, whether good or bad.
Why did I devote an entire article to this? Because while it's something that happens to every college student, whether neurotypical or with ASD, it's even more likely to happen to you, whether because of difficulties with social skills on your part, or being targeted by others because you're "different" on the part of others. Difference is something that makes people profoundly uncomfortable and, as you've likely noticed in your life, people tend to associate different with something that needs to be corrected, whether through constructive or destructive means. It's also very easy to internalize these situations and take them to mean that you yourself are a bad person, rather than a person in a bad situation. That's why this is so important to understand.
This is probably the point of the article where I should end with something inspiring like "stay the path!" or something humorous like "don't let the haters get you down!" Instead, though, I'm going to end on a pragmatic, and far more useful tone.
Stuff happens. What matters most is not what's happened in the past, but how we handle it in the present. Keeping a good perspective on the situation, which can be done with the help of people you trust, can help you learn from a bad situation and benefit from it.
Good luck!
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