“Winter is Coming."
Another year has gone by, and I have to say I'm amazed at how quickly it's moved. It seems like only a few months ago I had written my previous year in review, but it has in fact been about 11 months since I last examined this, and in that time I would have to say that my growth and changes have been in areas that I've never truly had much experience in, primarily in my relationships with my friends and girlfriend.
After I stopped competing with my brother in life and began making more of my own choices in terms of what I would like to do and how I enjoy experiencing life, I came to some realizations, particularly in how I interact with others and what benefits I can bring to others. I've learned that I am actually a fairly empathetic person, and when I refer to empathy, I refer primarily to how well I am able to experience other people's emotions and relate to them in terms of what they're going through. This is in contrast to sympathy, which is providing consolement and connection to the other person without actually feeling the emotions they're going through.
This realization has caused me to begin closely examining my emotions to determine if they are due to some distress or event I am feeling or if they are actually another person's emotions that I also have begun feeling. Differentiating these has helped me to grow in my ability to understand both my emotions and the emotions of others, and this coupled with my empathy has helped to develop an ability to be with people in hard times and console them to ensure they do not feel isolated or abandoned in times of need. In addition, this has allowed me to understand how a person feels and what drives them when I interact more with them, giving me another insight into who they are.
This empathy and emotional control is not perfect, however. Often times I'm left wondering what's causing the way that I'm feeling, or the way that others feel. It shows me that, despite empathy, truly understanding individuals is no easy task that often times can never be fully realized, especially when coupled with the fact that a person is always capable of change.
Much of this understanding about myself and others has been gained through a combination of closer interactions with my friends, being in a romantic relationship with one of my friends that still goes strong to this day, and reflecting on what those relationships mean to me, how I interact in them, and how others feel in them.
In the future, I see my girlfriend and I continuing to develop a closer relationship and gaining a greater understanding of who we are and what it means to be in a long-term relationship, but I also see us becoming closer to our other friends as well. I currently feel simultaneously closer and further from my friends. I feel closer due to the improved understanding I have of them and my ability to generally understand how they're feeling; however, I feel further due to the closeness I have gained with my girlfriend, as when two friends in the friend group begin dating, the other people can feel somewhat estranged from them, as they have their own relationship that no one else is really a part of. That, and the fact that all my friends are fairly productive people, so we all have our own lives to lead on, often times separate from each other.
We all plan to move into a house together this fall, so I we will end up being closer as a result. Graduation is two years away, but the friendship need not sink yet. My hope is to continue improving myself and help my friends improve themselves in ways that are healthy and beneficial to us all. That, and try to maintain some semblance of sanity as we try to work our way through our last two years of college, as I'm attempting to finish Senior Design and my Master's Thesis in the next two years. I'm confident that I will succeed in these endeavors despite the challenges they present, thanks to the friends that I have and the skills and knowledge that I've gained through my interactions with them and all the others
Another year has gone by, and I have to say I'm amazed at how quickly it's moved. It seems like only a few months ago I had written my previous year in review, but it has in fact been about 11 months since I last examined this, and in that time I would have to say that my growth and changes have been in areas that I've never truly had much experience in, primarily in my relationships with my friends and girlfriend.
After I stopped competing with my brother in life and began making more of my own choices in terms of what I would like to do and how I enjoy experiencing life, I came to some realizations, particularly in how I interact with others and what benefits I can bring to others. I've learned that I am actually a fairly empathetic person, and when I refer to empathy, I refer primarily to how well I am able to experience other people's emotions and relate to them in terms of what they're going through. This is in contrast to sympathy, which is providing consolement and connection to the other person without actually feeling the emotions they're going through.
This realization has caused me to begin closely examining my emotions to determine if they are due to some distress or event I am feeling or if they are actually another person's emotions that I also have begun feeling. Differentiating these has helped me to grow in my ability to understand both my emotions and the emotions of others, and this coupled with my empathy has helped to develop an ability to be with people in hard times and console them to ensure they do not feel isolated or abandoned in times of need. In addition, this has allowed me to understand how a person feels and what drives them when I interact more with them, giving me another insight into who they are.
This empathy and emotional control is not perfect, however. Often times I'm left wondering what's causing the way that I'm feeling, or the way that others feel. It shows me that, despite empathy, truly understanding individuals is no easy task that often times can never be fully realized, especially when coupled with the fact that a person is always capable of change.
Much of this understanding about myself and others has been gained through a combination of closer interactions with my friends, being in a romantic relationship with one of my friends that still goes strong to this day, and reflecting on what those relationships mean to me, how I interact in them, and how others feel in them.
In the future, I see my girlfriend and I continuing to develop a closer relationship and gaining a greater understanding of who we are and what it means to be in a long-term relationship, but I also see us becoming closer to our other friends as well. I currently feel simultaneously closer and further from my friends. I feel closer due to the improved understanding I have of them and my ability to generally understand how they're feeling; however, I feel further due to the closeness I have gained with my girlfriend, as when two friends in the friend group begin dating, the other people can feel somewhat estranged from them, as they have their own relationship that no one else is really a part of. That, and the fact that all my friends are fairly productive people, so we all have our own lives to lead on, often times separate from each other.
We all plan to move into a house together this fall, so I we will end up being closer as a result. Graduation is two years away, but the friendship need not sink yet. My hope is to continue improving myself and help my friends improve themselves in ways that are healthy and beneficial to us all. That, and try to maintain some semblance of sanity as we try to work our way through our last two years of college, as I'm attempting to finish Senior Design and my Master's Thesis in the next two years. I'm confident that I will succeed in these endeavors despite the challenges they present, thanks to the friends that I have and the skills and knowledge that I've gained through my interactions with them and all the others