Tag: growth

Bright Spots in Horrible Days

Posted on by andrew

Ananya Rajkumar (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

I have always been a very anxious person. It doesn’t exactly help that university life is very stressful and that for the last two years, everyone has been trying to survive a pandemic. Many people struggled with their mental health during this time, and unfortunately I was one of them. I was in my senior year of high school when the world went into a lockdown, and because of this I never had a graduation, or a prom or even my first year of university. To some this might not seem like a big deal, and honestly a part of me didn’t care too much about things like prom, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt like I’d missed big developmental milestones in my life. I was 18 years old, and instead of going out into the world and discovering myself, I was at home and struggling through online learning. I had never felt so alone and lost. I became depressed and more anxious than I had ever been, and the worst part was that I had no idea how to cope.

 

This was when I fell in love with reading. I would immerse myself in fictional worlds and live vicariously through their characters because I couldn’t handle the pressures in my real life. My brother would make comments like, “Why are you so sad? Everyone is going through the pandemic, you are not the only one,” which was ridiculous. Just because many others might be experiencing the same thing doesn’t diminish your own pain.

 

At the time though, what he said really got to me, because there were a lot of people who thrived in the pandemic, who took this pause to better themselves or take some much-needed rest. I criticized myself for not being like them. I always had a more negative mindset, but that never used to bother me until then.

 

All in all, it was a tough year, but I was so grateful for my mom, who was so understanding and encouraged me to talk to someone, and for my friends, who made me feel less alone because they felt the same way. I am also grateful for the Low Entropy community, which I joined because my own experience made me passionate about advocating for mental health and self-betterment. 

 

It’s around a year later and I am so much happier now, school is back in person, and I am living in a student house and trying to enjoy everyday life. The biggest change was not external but more internal, and it was because I adopted a different perspective. I stopped having these extremely high expectations of how life should be and tried to find happiness in the small things, like getting my favorite coffee, watching the sunset as I walk home, talking to my parents on the phone or maybe reading a good book. I would look at my days as a collection of little moments, some good and some bad, but either way I would try to enjoy them. I really tried to fall in love with life, no matter what it looked like. 

 

I was inspired to write this article for a long time, but what finally spurred me to type was a text I received from my mom. I had a very stressful weekend and had just completed a very hard midterm which did not go so well, but instead of letting it crush me, I chose to focus on how I could do better next time and the things I could do to enjoy that day. This is what I had told my mom when she asked me how I was feeling the next morning, and her response made me smile. 

 

“Good job getting through yesterday. It’s important to enjoy the difficult days as well . . . funny, but that’s a secret I discovered.”

 

Her message reminded me of how much I’d grown in the past year, and how there are not only bright spots in horrible days, but how sometimes we can appreciate hardships too, since they are what make us grow as people. 

I am happy that the world is starting to heal, but if you’d asked me a year ago if I wished the pandemic never happened, I would have agreed without a doubt. Now, though a part of me still mourns what could have been, I am grateful for the things I’ve learned about myself and the person I am today. No matter what the future holds, I know that I will still try and find a way to love life, and I hope you all will too.

 

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My name is Ananya Rajkumar, and I am a third-year life science student at McMaster University. Some of my hobbies include reading, drinking overpriced coffee and creating anything from works of writing to new recipes. I am passionate about advocating for mental health and hopefully by sharing my journey and thoughts through blog writing, I can help create change. 

With Hindsight

Posted on by andrew

Jihu Lee (she/her/hers), Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

 

It is only normal that we cringe at our past selves. As human beings, we are not meant to live with a spotless moral slate, meaning we will never be one hundred percent satisfied with our past choices and actions. Perhaps you wish you could have treated your siblings with more kindness, or you regret saying hurtful things to your friend out of anger. What is considered a wrongdoing to another or to oneself may differ from person to person. But it is important that we master the balance between holding ourselves accountable for past choices and forgiving ourselves for not knowing better at the time. 

 

If you cringe at your old self, it means you have grown, because the acknowledgment of an unsatisfactory choice is key to change. The important step afterward is turning our regret into accountability and action. That way, regret becomes motivation for growth and discipline, rather than a price to pay. The only way to move forward and evolve is to actively work on ourselves, instead of letting our old choices constrain us and convince us that we can’t change, or that it’ll be too difficult to change. 

 

Growth is only possible through setbacks and mistakes. Many people even advocate for the idea that there are no such things as mistakes, but rather turning points for change. If we were to see only perfection in hindsight, that would exclude any possibility for our growth in the future. It is so important that we recognize setbacks as new chapters in our lives, so that we don’t punish ourselves for being imperfect, as if any person is free of flaws. 

 

By forgiving ourselves for choices we wish we could have made differently, we are freeing ourselves from the prison of rumination and guilt. When we are trapped in the past, we miss out on living in the present and lose the opportunity to make a difference for the future. Thus, forgiving ourselves is one of the optimal forms of self-care. I think one misconception regarding self-forgiveness is that, by refusing to punish ourselves, we are avoiding responsibility for our actions. There seems to be this prevailing idea that beating ourselves to the ground is the only acceptable form of repentance. However, self-punishment zooms our attention to the parts we find wrong about ourselves and is ultimately problem-oriented. Forgiveness and grace, on the other hand, accounts for both responsibility and our capacity to grow. 

 

If we can master the knowledge that better versions of ourselves arise from empathy towards our pasts, we can extend a similar understanding to those around us. If someone has hurt us, we could benefit by trusting that they will make amends in the future, whether or not it will directly involve us anymore. That doesn’t mean we have to come to terms with the other person’s actions and the impact they had on us. Forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same. Instead, by simply recognizing that others can have the potential to grow, we detach ourselves from the pain they caused and ultimately keep them from having power over us. 

 

Thus, not surprisingly, the level of respect we garner for ourselves affects the quality of our interpersonal relationships. It can strengthen boundaries and improve the circle of people we allow in our lives. We will also heighten our sense of empathy and become better at apologizing or taking responsibility for our actions. 

 

Be aware that not every action has the same degree of impact, therefore it becomes our responsibility to make amends accordingly. The bottom line is that it is the nature of humanity to see better in hindsight, but we have the power to use the lessons and newfound knowledge to make an impact on our future. On top of it all, kindness towards oneself is highly important in bringing about progress. Like the way a plant can’t grow without light or water, you can’t foster personal growth if you constantly deprive yourself of hope and encouragement. Self-punishment is not the rent you have to pay for being human in this world. So remember that the next time you advocate for kindness towards others, it should include you.

 

—

 

My name is Jihu, and I’m from Salt Lake City, Utah! I have been with Low Entropy since May 2021. Some of the things I love are reading, writing, listening to music, playing with my dogs and spending time with my sister!

Stay-at-Home Schooling

Posted on by andrew

While educational institutions adapted their curriculums to a pandemic reality, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Jihu Lee took some valuable lessons from isolation itself.

 

The world of education during the coronavirus pandemic has shifted impressively to compensate for the loss of conventional learning opportunities. My younger sister, Brooklyn, spent fourth grade fully online. Not surprisingly, there is a growing concern about the impact of increased screen time on the neurological progress of youth around Brooklyn’s age who are still climbing the peak of their developmental stage. My parents themselves have been stressed over Brooklyn’s lengthened time spent on her computer. Meanwhile, I experienced my first year of college online in my home state of Utah. No matter what demographic of students we belong in, I believe we can collectively agree that a pandemic-restricted environment is not conducive to learning. I would like to offer my insight on education during COVID-19 from the standpoint of a college student. 

 

After graduating high school in 2019, I took a gap year to work and travel. By March 2020, our lives detoured in an unexpected direction when COVID-19 began accelerating in the United States. Even still, most of us, if not all, were under the impression that the pandemic would be over by the end of summer 2020. Evidently, that has not been the case. When USC began sending mixed messages regarding plans for a “return” to campus, our unease soared while our hopes and expectations faltered. I tried to keep myself excited about meeting my professors and taking classes that caught my interest. 

 

Now, as I write this, it is June 2021. It is incredibly challenging to accurately put into words what this year had brought for me. As a first-year college student, I was looking forward to taking flight from under my parents’ roof and experience my independence away from home. I wanted to meet a highly diverse student body and share stories with those vastly different from me. So many “should have”s and “could have”s. I have also felt ashamed of the feeling that I was victimizing myself, which fanned the flames of my doubts regarding my level of productivity. But through it all, I learned to regulate my emotions and discipline to feel my best, even if that meant finding a new version of myself to be comfortable with. 

 

This was not the college experience anyone would ever aspire to have, but the growth that took place in me is immeasurable. One particular idea became especially clear: education is far more than sitting in our academic classes. Spending an uncomfortable amount of time by myself has induced four main points of development: 

 

  1. The mortifying ordeal of knowing yourself and its rewards: To improve as a person, we need to know what we lack. Whether that means seeking help to resolve unprocessed trauma or trying to reconnect with our parents, we have to undergo the rite of painful discomfort to bloom again. There is nothing like a pandemic that would force me to be alone more than usual, and it has made me look into who I am, what I need and what I want to change. 

 

  1. Boosting self-discipline and becoming your own cheerleader: The person who is responsible for sending that email or finishing that assignment now instead of three hours later is me. Moreover, when our accomplishments go unnoticed, we reserve the right to acknowledge them and feel proud of ourselves. After all, external noise comes in all forms– validation, disapproval, underestimation – but I have the power to consistently root for myself. 

 

  1. Perspective: I struggle with holding space for my own feelings because I don’t consider them as important as others’ situations around the world. But the knowledge that others “have it worse” should allow us to heighten awareness and empathy rather than invalidate our own experiences. The pandemic has taught me that kindness towards myself not only strengthens me, but also makes me a better empath! We don’t rise by bringing down others, and I seem to have learned that bringing ourselves down doesn’t uplift others the way we think it does either.

 

  1. Realizing how capable you are: Whether you powered through an entire day with your energy at 100% or finished one assignment because of a raging headache, your worth and abilities never wavered and never will. The perfect human condition may not exist, but we don’t need it to prove to ourselves that we are strong. If you fall, it’s okay to crawl for a bit of the way, as long as you rise again. 

 

This is what education was for me during COVID-19. Of course, academics are highly important to me, but there is significant value in what school doesn’t teach us that we can learn for ourselves. My take on education during COVID-19 is less about how to make academics worthwhile on Zoom, but what else we were able to learn about ourselves during such an uncertain period of our lives. We do not have to feel obligated to find a silver lining in every painful lesson of our lives, but I truly believe that we deserve to give ourselves credit where it is more than due.

 

What have you learned during this trying time? Let us know in the comments below or on any of our social media channels!

Empowerment: From the Path of Least Resistance to the Path of Most Resilience.

Posted on by andrew

Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Ellie Gibbard walks us through her thoughts on empowerment and resilience, stopping by concepts of self-love, growth and confidence along the way.

 

  • What is empowerment?

 

Feeling empowered comes from finding the ability to be the best and healthiest version of ourselves. It comes from knowledge, confidence and resilience. To clarify what I mean by the “best” version of ourselves, best does not have to mean perfect. Perfection is an unrealistic ideal and I think striving for perfection is an exhausting and dooming practice that is too present in today’s culture. Who is to say what is perfect and what is not? To feel that we are the best version of ourselves and to feel confident in who we are – this is to feel empowered. Similarly, being the “healthiest” version of ourselves doesn’t mean to say we have to drink celery juice and work out every day. I mean healthy in the sense that we have the willingness to take care of ourselves. 

 

  • What is resilience?

 

Being resilient is having the capacity to work through adversity and often grow from it. Resilience is how we respond to difficulty and is a way for us to find strength in ourselves. It sounds nice, but being resilient is not easy and is not something that naturally occurs; we don’t just go through difficulties and automatically become resilient.

 

  • How can we become resilient?

 

I think that resilience is often associated with toughness and thought of as being able to put our feelings aside, our heads down, and just push through hard times. I would argue that being resilient is a result of self-love and having empathy for ourselves. Although it is something we can reach as individuals, resilience isn’t necessarily something we can find by reaching inside of ourselves alone. Instead, it is about being able to care about ourselves enough to seek out and navigate supportive resources. This is where self-love comes in. 

 

  • How can self-love lead to resilience?

 

Self-love and having the willingness to care for ourselves is the key to resilience. If we don’t love ourselves, how can we feel deserving of love and how can we seek out love and support? I think that there is often a stigma around self-love and what it is. People hear “self” and think “narcissism.” Just because you have love for yourself does not mean you think you are perfect in any way. Self-love comes from not resisting who you are and knowing that you are not perfect, embracing your imperfection, and accepting it as part of what makes you, you. This is the key to self-love. We have to be able to love ourselves because the way we love ourselves is the example to the world of how to love us. If we can’t treat ourselves with love, how can others? Being able to love and empathize with ourselves allows us to believe that we deserve love and empathy from others and guides us towards supportive people and environments that will foster resilience within us. 

 

  • From resilience to empowerment.

 

Finally, how can being resilient lead us to feeling empowered? Resilience empowers us because it gives us confidence in our abilities to work through and rise above adversity. Again, our abilities don’t necessarily need to mean solving things on our own; there is strength in numbers and being able to reach out for support and say “I need help” shows great strength. Having the capacity to work through and grow from challenges is resilience, and gaining confidence from the growth is empowerment. 

 

Tell us about a time when you had to be resilient – drop a comment below or inspire us at a Low Entropy meet-up!

Gusto in a Dangerous Time

Posted on by vwideski

As we round the corner on the first month of a new, hopeful year, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer Mike Vaness pauses to reflect on what still might be salvaged from the flaming wreckage of 2020.

It would be a massive understatement to say that 2020 was a tumultuous year. Our lives have changed in ways that mimic works of fiction. However, we persevered and made it through, anticipating a brighter new year and promising to better ourselves. This is the time to make some positive changes, bring about new habits or start new hobbies. On the other hand, these new resolutions are often challenging and overly ambitious, and many of us have undoubtedly fallen back into old habits. As such, in 2021, I feel that instead of racing toward a “New Year, New Me,” perhaps we should look back upon the year we’ve just wrapped up, and find some positivity and growth that was mixed within all the chaos.

Looking back on the holiday season, I think it would be safe to say that our normal routines and expectations completely changed. Normally we would have been busy working out travel plans, matching schedules with work and social events, and attempting to see everyone and go all the places we could. This year there was a lot more emphasis on staying home with online shopping and shipping. It was hard to deal with the reality that we could not visit family or friends during the time when being with our loved ones was most important. I know when this realization first sank in for me, I was feeling quite depressed and sad. I haven’t been able to see my family in over a year, and it does not look like that will change for months to come. With that in mind, I have also come to realize how thankful I am for the new technology that allowed us to be more digitally connected than ever before. 

When I sat down on Christmas morning with just my partner and myself at home, we had a quiet breakfast, opened a couple gifts and took a much more calm and slow pace. We both commented that we were not exactly missing the pressure of having to keep to a tighter schedule – although I admit we don’t have children in our household, so this may not have been the same experience for everyone! We then began to set up a Zoom call for my family, and it was amazing to be able to see everyone’s faces when we spoke with them. It just brings a new level of communication that helps fill the void of not being together in person just a little bit more. New technology is by no means a replacement for being with friends and family in person, but I’m still glad it offers more than what we have had in the recent past.

The flexibility of technology can be positively applied to other aspects of our lives as well, with people being able to work from home and finding an entirely new sense of work and life balance. People have discovered all kinds of new hobbies and projects because they were encouraged to stay home. Many people have been able to explore different creative avenues that before may have been overlooked. I myself have found that I enjoy trying new and different recipes in the kitchen, and trying things that are a bit unusual. It has been an uplifting and fun experience that has allowed me to expand my repertoire for weekday meals.

Looking back at how our lives have changed, we can also focus on how best to move forward. We can see how things have changed on a grand scale, and while we may not want to maintain many of those changes once the public becomes a safer place, there are always some changes that can be made for the better. There is no reason, once we gain more freedom, why we cannot continue our creative pursuits. I will continue to look into new things to try in the kitchen, as well as working with other crafts. For instance, I recently bought equipment to work with casting resin, and am looking forward to trying it out to see where it can lead for future projects.

While we have all had our lives upended, in the end we can either completely ignore the past or try to move forward with gusto and fervor. I think there is a lot of good that can be had from looking to the past, reflecting, learning and gaining perspective. The past year was one of sadness and chaos, but there are bits and pieces that we can pull from it to help us keep moving forward. For 2021 we can try to bring about a new us, because we have grown even in the shadow of a disastrous year. We made it through, and now we can take the best parts of ourselves and decide who we get to be.

Who are you going to be in 2021? How much of 2020 will you take with you? Comment, keep an eye on this space and check out some Low Entropy virtual programming in the new year!