All the mindfulness and self-awareness exercises I’ve been doing at both Global Citizen Year PDT and Tufts 1+4 Orientation have made me think a lot about my character traits, ones that I value and ones that I want to change over my bridge year. I’ve realized that adaptability is one of the keys of doing well during a bridge year but also throughout the rest of your life–but also that I’m not as bad at adapting as I thought. I was able to bounce back when my college plans didn’t work out like I thought they would, when I don’t win a race, when my prom pic plans are going astray.
I’ve been trying hard to set no expectations for this trip (very hard for me since I love planning ahead so much!), but I’m letting myself set a goal- which is to be adaptable dealing with things that I didn’t expect. Realizing I already had the adaptability I thought I lacked in me was empowering and exciting, but now I just want to learn how to use it and stay calm in situations when the little girl inside of me would want to panic.
Sophia Carroll
Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve hated any change of plans. My parents tell me I they would have to strategize how to break the simple news to me that we were going to a different restaurant than planned or that my cousins would actually be showing up to dinner a few hours late. My dislike for discomfort followed me through the rest of my life–and I’ve come to think of myself as being bad to adapt, which sometimes turned into a self-fufilling prophecy; I would give myself permission to freak out over changes in small things like party plans and big things like test scores.
