MELISSA: Sometimes it can be really helpful to ask for help from somebody who’s outside of your situation because when you’re really deep in trying to solve your own problems, it can be hard to do it from a third party perspective. And that can be real helpful because sometimes you don’t see what you’re doing when you’re actually doing it.
So for example, when I had called my mom and she had asked me why I was doing all these things I didn’t want to do, I hadn’t actually realized that that was what I had been doing until she asked me that. And also as another example, when I talked to Scott, who is the course 15 undergraduate director, he’d also reminded me that sometimes you don’t have to make a decision for the rest of your life.
And when I talked to him about that, I also didn’t really see it from that perspective because I had just thought, oh, the decisions I make now are just forever because that’s what it seems like when you’re living your life day to day. But hearing it from somebody who has been through other things helps me recenter myself and just realize like what is actually the bigger picture.