[This post will be split into 4 parts}
by: Kimberly Phelan '18
The Top 4 Unexpected Results of Being a German Princess for a Month
Greetings Fellows! I have done much discernment over the past few weeks, looking at my life through our new worldview. I have thought about lots of different things, ranging from the joyless robots I see wandering campus to the serial daters that I encounter to what I’m doing when I graduate from college in less than 50 days—that’s been on my mind basically nonstop..gigs..—to the constant addiction that we all have to technology. I am sure that I am not alone in most of these ponderings, so I figured I would share my thoughts with you all. I will be sharing with you four posts in a series over the next few days—so please enjoy this venture into my innermost thoughts about the world we live in.
Part 1 - Breaking News: College Students That Enjoy Class?!
Picture this: you are sitting in class, enjoying the relaxed set-up of the room—it reminds you of the warm days in the Schloss—and you are listening contently to the chatter in the room, when suddenly the professor asks what you are smiling at. “Me?” I ask in utter confusion? Why would the professor ask why I am smiling? She was dumbfounded by the fact that I was enjoying her class. “I am sorry for putting you on the spot, but I am not used to students being happy about being in class. I assumed I had something on my face.”
How disappointing is it that people assume something must be awry in order for someone to find enjoyment in a classroom? Or anywhere for that matter? What kind of world do we live in that dissatisfaction is the norm and finding joy in life is out-of-the-ordinary? In Matthew Kelly’s book “Resisting Happiness”, he discusses how we achieve happiness by battling resistance. The very first chapter covers resistance and how we have a lack of motivation which can be translated into a life full of laziness to pride to self-sabotage—or in other words, sin.
Of course, each one of us desires to be happy. We don’t intentionally fight it. But sometimes we just want the easy way out, and the easy way out may mean sleeping an extra five minutes in the morning instead of waking up to pray. Or maybe it means cancelling dinner plans with your friend because you’re really tired and listening to them complain about that guy one more time will just put you over the top.
For me, the easy way out is going to class and not talking to anyone—sitting quietly and taking notes—but I decided to make a change. I decided to smile in class and say hello to the person next to me. After my professor called me out in class three days in a row, one of the “happiest” guys in class came up to me and said, “how are you so happy all of the time? I wish I had the joy that you have. It is so pure.” And that made me realize, I am happy. It worked. I’m not just putting on a show for the class, I am truly happy—to be a student at a university, to be a beloved daughter of Jesus Christ, to be a friend to someone who feels alone, to be the reason someone else smiles today.