“Nostalgia is truly one of the great human weaknesses, next only to the neck.” – Dwight Schrute 

Although I would rather wake up every morning without a sharp pain in my neck everytime I sleep the wrong way, I disagree with Schrute. As I try to pour all my senior wisdom on my last article as a staff member of The Blaze, I cannot help but feel nostalgic about the memorable past four years. Each day I move closer to the date of my graduation, I’m reminded of how the comfort of home, school, and seeing the same set of friends everyday will be gone in a mere 40 days. 

If I were to meet myself 4 years ago, I would have still felt the same nostalgia, except for different reasons. I’d be nostalgic of my years in India, for the people I had called family for the previous 13 years. I’d be nostalgic for those Indian monsoons which began with the smell of the earth and those morning assemblies at school that I spent laughing with my classmates. No matter what stage of life I am, I have come to realize that I am always looking back to the good old days and I never realize I am actually living through them. Although high school is a lot of work, it was never as bad as I had made it seem at the moment. Every time I was thrown a new obstacle, I realized how miniscule the previous ones had been when they’re compared, how I had over exaggerated the difficulty of something while I worked through an issue. 

Looking back at those obstacles, I only remember the good parts: the rush of finishing a regatta my team had practiced for, acing a test I had studied for days, finishing our newsmagazine after hours of editing my spread, making it through a long Tuesday with my friends. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s never as bad as it seems. It might seem like the end of the world at the moment, but I promise you, that C in AP U.S. history will not set you back from your dream school.

Regardless of where you are in your life, you will always be looking back to when times were easier and better. When  occupied with feeling nostalgic about the past, don’t forget to enjoy your present.