The developmental phase

Ever hear of the phrase, everything will work out in the end? Or there’s light in the tunnel? The 2019 seniors in my dorm told me that repeatedly during periods of stress. At the time, I failed to fully appreciate the meaning behind that saying. I had supposed the light at the end of the tunnel would suddenly come together, or that the “end” would be when I finished high school. I’m on Spring Break for the next two week so I’m writing this from a retrospective point of view. What I can confidently say is that this term forced me to take a new look at these two sayings.

I suppose there’s something we could call a lag time where we’re waiting for the results of things we submitted/completed a while back. That period I’m going to dote the developmental phase. I realized this past term that a large part of what caused me stress was that I was waiting for the results of many things I had set forth or completed, such as standardized testing, summer programs, and schoolwork. I had completed most of these tasks from late December to early February so this past term, it felt like I was constantly anticipating the results of each major task. 

I think the anticipation during the waiting period caused me the most stress. I was constantly thinking about things that were out of my control, such as how well I’d done on a test I took or a paper I had submitted.  I thought about the results of my applications to summer programs and what scores I would get on my standardized tests. I realize now how unhealthy these behaviors can be because, by the end of February, things began to fall into place as I received the results of each article I had set forth. When these uncertainties solidified towards the end of February, I felt an utter relief, as if the weight from the worrying had been alleviated.

I suppose life has always been like that, for the developmental phase didn’t just emerge spontaneously. I believe a combination of Upper year and the weight of every task I complete added an additional stress by bringing a new degree of heft of the development phase that made it stand out this term. But I’ve learned from this experience and I’ve energized a new outlook on the saying everything will work out in the end. 

The end by no means refers to the end of high school or the end of college or when I find my first job. The end doesn’t refer to major stepping stones, rather, it refers to the small steps that it takes to get us there. Waiting for those small steps to work out is what working out in the end entails. I hope that I will remember this in subsequent terms. I hope that I will remember this on the days when it feels like nothing is going right when in reality, I’m just waiting for the results of different tasks I complete. There’s a nuanced difference here and I see the importance in its acknowledgment.