Hello again! My name is Hannah. I grew up in darling Guelph, Ontario and am now a fourth-year English and Psychology student. I am an old soul who loves cooking wholesome, colourful food, making music, and reading nerdy, whimsical books. I’ve been writing for SASS for the past three years of my undergrad, and it’s hard to believe that this will be my final year!
I used to think that when I entered my fourth year, my life would be a lot tidier. But since my younger years of believing that perfection is the goal, I have noticed that the parameters for gauging my ‘success’ in life have changed. Instead, I am more thankful than ever for my hopeful, colourful, untidy little life. I am still as ambitious as I was when I was little. However, when I consider my ambitions now, I like to consider the perspective L.M. Montgomery presents in Anne of Green Gables: “Oh, it’s delightful to have ambitions. I’m so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them – that’s the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.”
Ambitions, I used to suppose, were a way to measure how far from my dreams I was. It doesn’t have to be this way. I am learning that my ambitions do not need to bind me to a limited reality, but instead they are opportunities for me to stretch and lean into my longings,
Over my undergrad, I have tried a lot of different organization templates to attempt to realize my ambition of becoming a teacher. I have written all my notes by hand, I have time blocked every minute of my life in a digital calendar, I have tried every variation of the Pomodoro method, and I have tried studying at different hours and in different places on campus. Leaning into my desire to make my life as tidy and perfect as possible, I figured that the ‘perfect organization tool’ would be the key to my success. I must have tried everything. But alas, I find myself in my fourth year, realizing that sometimes, less is more.
My new favourite thing is the Rifle Paper Co planner I bought with some birthday money. I always associated beautiful planners with adults who had their lives “all figured out.” I must confess to little Hannah that my life is not in fact “all figured out,” but I have found myself delighted by calendar scheduling and to-do lists more than I ever thought I would. At the end of every week, I fill in the large to-do list section on next week’s spread of all the things that I’ll need to do. I slot those tasks in, day by day, based on when they need to get done. I was astonished how this only takes me 30 minutes at the end of each week and has already made my life so much easier.
My encouragement to you (and myself!) as we step into this next academic year is that you do not need to solve every single problem. It is okay if you don’t have your life all figured out. I always forget that every single September, I come back to campus, and I already feel behind even though I am not.
It is okay if the trajectory of where you are going does not look like the next person's. Some things that work for someone else might not work for you, and that is okay. We are all figuring this whole life-thing out. You are doing a good job.
Follow along in these monthly blogs as I lean more into cultivating habits and routines that help nourish and protect all facets of my well-being and encourage you to do the same in practical, student-friendly ways!
Cheers,
Hannah