_Kurtis Dunlap is a fifth-year senior at MU. He is an English major. He writes about student life as an opinion columnist for The Maneater._
Living in today’s society, we tend to want to rush everything we do. At the start of every semester, we count down the days until winter or summer break. We wake up on Monday morning and immediately can’t wait for it to be Friday.
We need to begin to slow things down and appreciate the present. The present only happens once, and if we are continuously looking to the future, we are going to miss the awesome things right in front of our face.
This weekend was, hopefully, my last Homecoming. Looking back at all my previous years at MU, I realized I missed out on a lot. I was too focused on the future, or it was too easy to say I would do something “next year.” I can remember not going to events freshman year because I thought they were lame or I was too “cool” for them. The Midnight BBQ or Flick on Faurot are just some of the things I missed out on, along with countless Homecoming events.
I have gone to MU for almost five years now and haven’t been to a single Homecoming parade. I’ve never donated blood during Homecoming week, and I’ve never even gone to the Homecoming football game. I didn’t take advantage of the opportunities that were available to me because I never paid enough attention to the present. For all intents and purposes, I haven’t participated in any Homecoming events, and that is something I will never get back and will regret.
You have heard it a million times, and you will hear it one more: Your time here at MU goes by faster than you think. Sometimes it goes so fast that it just becomes a blur. The one way you can slow down time is to just appreciate the present.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment,” is a quote from Buddha that I think should be plastered on every dorm wall.
The next time you think about complaining about how you want it to be Friday, or you look at a calendar to count down the days, do yourself a favor and don’t. Instead, concentrate on what you can do in that exact moment to make it the very best it can be. You may find that those are the moments that you will remember when your short time here at MU is over.
