A Writer’s Words: Seize the future with air for the past
By Annmarie Mercieri
No regrets. Everything you do defines who you are as a person and the second you begin to regret, you are denying who you are as a human being. These are the words I’ve come to live by — wise words from an amazing woman I once knew and still hold close to my heart.
Over the course of four years I have seen copious changes affecting Rider both positively and negatively, but whether these vicissitudes be good or the polar opposite, the only thing one can do is accept change with an open mind.
Embrace every opportunity to experience something new. It may not be something you agree with, but, as the saying goes, you can’t have everything you want and sometimes we learn the most through our experiences.
College is strange in the way that we pay to write the papers and lab reports that we spend countless nights complaining about. We empty our pockets to gain more knowledge so that we can one day be great successes in life, but we learn much more than we think.
I urge everyone to save at least one piece of writing from a freshman year course. Stow it away in some designated personal time capsule, and four years later as you are writing the final papers of your undergraduate career, take out that forgotten artifact and re-read it. You’ll be amazed at how far you have come.
After realizing you’re actually not as bad of a writer as you originally assumed, do the same exact thing but with as many memories as possible. Go into the depths of your ever-useful Facebook.com account and dig up those old tagged photographs even if they are from the previous semester.
Recollection makes us so much stronger. The ability to learn from the past, to soak in how far you have come in life whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally or scholastically is phenomenal. Marinate in that for a while.
Do I have any words of great wisdom to leave Rider? I have my opinions, my beliefs to share with the community, and whether they are taken seriously or with a grain of salt, they have helped me through these four years more than I ever imagined they would.
“One day at a time,” said a friend of mine. Live life one day at a time. There are no master plans. Not everything works out the way you’d like it to, and when things are in your opposition, realize you need the bad in order to appreciate the goodness in life.
Don’t let anything or anyone stop you from reaching your goals because the ones who care will still be standing next to you in the end and those are the ones that matter.
So good luck to those who still have some time left. Don’t take it for granted because it will be gone before you know it. Tomorrow is not a promise so embrace spontaneity. Stop and smell the flowers.
Carpe Diem.
