Choices

We don't get many chances at making something of our lives. Too often we don't even realise or recognise that we need to, thanx to the comfort zones we create for ourselves. Here, the world is known, safe, peopled by like minded souls and activity is on our terms, giving it shared meaning.
We adjust and adapt to the real world from this cocoon. The realities of the real world oft forgotten or just ignored. Dwelling in the known, with a support system that's our very own, is comforting. Ones thoughts get conditioned to perpetuating this space and the choices one makes are dictated by the sense of feel good, very often overlooking opportunities that a future beyond the here and now would necessitate. Life is what you decide is happening and tomorrow is another day.
Living for now, in the present, is an evergreen mantra. But your present was your future once and will be your past tomorrow. The choices you make in creating what is in the here and now, will define what will be, your future.
None of us really wish to grow up. If only time could stand still at this age of our lives. Discovering ourselves, savouring the fruits of freedom and enjoying taking the decisions and the responsibility for one's own life. Living the meaning of doing your own thing. The college years are truly the best and what most of us wish to be the longest years of our lives.They are also integral to making you who you are and will be and what you will become.
This time, moulds you for the place you seek to create in the real world. If you let the safety of your cocoon keep you unaware of of the rules of the game and the attributes of the players on the outside, adjustment and adaptation becomes selective. You must equip yourself for handling people and situations unknown. One's circle of friends can be the biggest strength as also the greatest drawback to that.Bonds should strengthen not tie one down. Relationships have an uncanny knack of doing both. And they are the basis of comfort zones. And that's where an understanding of space becomes vital. The space to do your own thing and not just conform to common accepted visions about life that usually bring people together. At the end of the day, we are all individualistic and it always will be to each their own. It is only a matter of the choices one makes and the basis for those choices.
The responses to friends, situations, choices must be determined by who and where you want to be in the real world, when the real and total responsibilities of your life are on your shoulders. Where you seek to actualise the dreams you had for yourself and make sure they are achievable and not just sacrificed to experience a few years of feel good moments, that do at this time feel like the best time of your life. But move on you must into the real world.
Let this period be remembered for the good times, strength and people who supported you and gave you the courage to achieve rather than have to reflect back on it saying "If only I knew then what I know know" That stems only from the knowledge of who you want to be. If you don't have an idea about that by now, then its likely that's how it will be. We don't get many chances at making something of our lives.