As soon as I stepped back on campus this year, I felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. I consider myself a very involved person and love that being a student at Saint Louis University (SLU) allows me to have a lot of extracurricular activities in addition to my schoolwork. I knew that returning to campus would be a big shift after having a fairly relaxed summer and an unconventional academic semester last spring due to studying abroad. I was excited to get back to being the busy, hurrying-around-campus person that I am, but it made me a bit anxious to think about what that entailed. So when, on the second day of school, I felt overwhelmed by the many things I had to do, I wondered if this feeling would characterize the rest of my semester.Â
Even though it doesn’t have the same full-day class schedule as high school, college can be very fast-paced, especially for those of us who enjoy being involved. This means that it is easy to get overwhelmed. Once I was able to stop and think for a moment, my perspective shifted. I thought about how I want to live my life and reframed how I view the things that make me busy. I considered exactly why I was running around so much, why my calendar was suddenly very full and why all of this made me so apprehensive.Â
In high school, I was also a very involved student: I ran a baking club, was a part of volleyball teams year-round, served on student government and was engaged in freshman leadership, among other things. This was all in addition to my academics at my rigorous high school, and that was no walk in the park. But when I reminisce about the things that made me busy, the main thing I remember is how they made me feel. I remember the satisfaction I felt after an especially fun volleyball practice, the times a club meeting went just as planned and, most prominently, laughing and enjoying the company I surrounded myself with. In high school, in college and in life, I am a busy person, not necessarily because I like being busy, but because the things that keep me busy bring me so much joy. Shifting my mindset to remember why I do the things I love has helped me feel less overwhelmed and instead more grateful.Â
The Jesuit concept of cura personalis that I learned about in my first semester at SLU helped me put a name to this feeling of wanting to make sure that I enjoy the things that make me busy. Cura personalis means care for the whole person. When I think about what it was like to be a student in high school, success and well-being typically meant learning and getting good grades. I was privileged enough to not have to worry about getting from one place to another, feeding myself or even getting enough sleep because living at home allowed me to lean on my family for these things.
Coming to college was completely different. I realized that now I had to take care of myself in a much more holistic sense: my mother wasn’t going to text me to remind me to eat a balanced meal or go to bed; it was my job to do all of that. My Cura Personalis class helped me learn that this balance is not just about getting through the day, finding balance is about being intentional about holistic well-being and building structures to take care of yourself in the long term. If I exclusively focused on my educational well-being, even if I am successful academically, the rest of my life would quickly fall apart.Â
While continuing to work hard to be a good student, I also focus on my overall well-being. Going to club meetings that interest me, being engaged in groups for students in my majors, working out, spending time with friends, eating well and getting enough sleep all help me be the happy, well-functioning person that I am. I don’t want to look back at college and think, “All I ever did was study” or “I wish I had made time to…”. I have adopted the attitude that if I am doing something I love, something that will help me grow in an aspect of my life that is important to me, I am spending my time well.Â
 I have learned to put my holistic self first, not just my academic self. I recognize that I am a whole person, not just a student. Living my life to the fullest means living all aspects of it. Academics are still a large part of who I am—and an important part—just not the only part. I contain multitudes, and those multitudes all deserve a chance to shine.