I cannot say that I could stand at the base of a mountain and find the will to climb.
Starting is the most difficult aspect of anything. To start requires courage, strength and knowing — on some level — that a struggle is ahead.
It’s so easy once we start our routines of the semester to put down our heads and follow the trenches carved by our own wandering feet.
Listless conversations overtake our days. Autopilot takes over, and we no longer feel the need to be present in our own lives.
To combat this grey, lackluster life, we have to begin anew. This is where that same lackluster starts to feel warm and homey. Beginning something new leads to the unknown, thus, leading to discomfort and thus, leading to fear.
The bravest thing someone can do on a daily basis is to embark on something new.
Take the new members of The Daily Gamecock staff. They heard a bunch of freaks yelling on Greene Steet or read a random tweet or a quarter-sheet of paper scattered around the Coliseum and then chose to go to a meeting. At that meeting, they watched a group of friends try and explain the multitudes of things they do every night to put out a paper.
After everything, they still chose to add another task to their daily routine for the sake of making an awesome product that they are proud of and can put their name on.
Their days now have challenge. Whether it’s as a writer figuring out how to get a hold of a new band to interview, or a columnist laboring for hours over the wording of a thought, every day is different and every story takes on new challenges, but their days will never be grey.
As much as I hate to admit it, The Daily Gamecock isn’t the only place on campus where one can find this kind of stimulus. The campus is actually full of opportunities to break from the usual.
You can meet with like-minded people once a week or once a month with a number of student organizations like College Democrats or FemCo or, in the interest of being fair and balanced, the College Republicans.
There’s a club on campus whose sole purpose is to gather students who like to jump out of planes, and then they jump out of planes together. While it doesn’t always have to be that extreme, there are obviously a wide range of possibilities for students.
While it may be difficult, and often scary to step out of one’s comfort zone to begin anew with a new group of people, it is undoubtedly worth it.