Taking life one step at a time

In 2016 — which now seems like a lifetime ago — my mom, my cousins and I took a trip to Target. This wasn’t just any boring old grocery run, it was a trip with purpose. I had just landed at the San Francisco airport after a grueling 20-hour journey from New Delhi, which had given me enough time to draft the most detailed shopping list imaginable.

But for those of you who don’t know, the stationery aisle is one that is impossible to prepare for. Pens! In every hue of blue and black, all sorts of thicknesses, and more grips than you thought existed. Notebooks are a whole different ballgame — white lines, gray lines, graph paper, some spiral-bound, some divided into sections. As a wide-eyed freshman, these were make-or-break items for me. I knew my life had to be color-coded, labeled and perfectly organized — this was non-negotiable.

And so, armed with my Target bags, Google Calendar and to-do app, I was ready to tackle UC Berkeley. I would never have to do an assignment last-minute with my fool-proof system. It was easy: I had a slot for everything I needed to get done — homework, readings, Netflix, long, arduous phone calls with high school friends and even time to think of smart questions to ask in office hours. I determined my own next steps. If I did everything right, the future would be easy.

There are two types of people reading this column. You might be a person who is excited about the direction of this piece. You might think that maybe Mahira, a graduating senior, will impart some tips to help us tabulate and collate our lives too! But for the other type, who wonders how they even read this far, planning sounds like a nightmare. Putting everything down in ink and leaving little room for spontaneity can’t be sustainable — and honestly, sounds pretty boring.

The need to be on top of everything, always be perfect and never be wrong, is something many of us enter college with. We start off on the wrong foot, with severely unrealistic expectations. UC Berkeley is notorious for being a hard school, and it definitely isn’t a 9 to 5 job you take your mind off of at the end of the day. Academic burnout, stress and exhaustion are very real, and are shockingly prevalent on our campus.

My days of envisioning outcomes and charting out my destiny were short-lived and exceedingly unsuccessful — and for that, I am grateful. However, foregoing the lists and calendars meant that things slipped through the cracks here and there. Two months ago, I left Berkeley in a flurry of last-minute flights and packing. If I had a checklist, I probably would have noted the lone banana sitting on my desk, and wouldn’t need to return to a small pile of pungent, decaying mush. This semester, a time-table dividing my RRR week studying would have given me time to finish my final papers and also write this column without asking for an extension.

Taking into account all the merits of careful forethought, having the freedom to cut yourself some slack and digress from the right path is highly underrated. Real life cannot be planned or predicted. As members of the class of 2020, so many of us are graduating into a pandemic and financial crisis, and a new reality of uncertainty, unemployment and overall instability. None of us signed up for this and we definitely didn’t plan for it. If you’re the first of the two kinds of people reading my column, it’s easy to feel in control when you have everything on paper, but it could be time for a step back to realize that you don’t need — and definitely won’t always have — that power.

I will always be proud to be a UC Berkeley graduate. I’m a firm believer that this tried and true 152-year-old institution provides the strongest foundation in the world for future leaders and ethical global citizens. But even the best public university in the world can’t promise the vague ideal future that many of us pictured as freshmen.

The people I’ve been lucky to surround myself with showed me that it’s OK to let go and see the world through rose-tinted glasses. But through their own trials and tribulations, they have proven that it’s even better to have the confidence to make big mistakes, try new things and waver from your plans.

Some of these people make up the next generation of brilliant, ceiling-shattering women. Aryn, who is relentlessly strong, and grew to become one of my best friends through the most unlikely of situations. Fionce, who continues to surprise me with her constant genuineness and compassion. Nikita, who was my first friend on campus, and somewhere along the way turned into family. Aubri, Lillian, Heather, Priyanka and Helen, who are polar opposites of me, but are the most interesting, bright and fun people I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with.

And then my dad, who will go to absolutely any length to understand and passionately support my dreams and goals. He teaches me to be a better and smarter person every single day. My mom, who has superhuman patience and unmeasurable kindness. And always, my brother, who grudgingly imparts the most valuable advice and never answers my calls, but is my very favorite person.

My stationery collection has more doodles than bullet points and deadlines these days, and uncertainty is an unwelcome but new reality for thousands of new grads. I may not have a 10-year plan, but, no matter what I do next, I’m lucky to have these people in my corner.