Trying to Have a Future While Still Living the Present

There is something very strange about being a senior and having almost every adult around you ask the same question: So, where are you going to college?

I know they mean well. Most of the time, I am actually excited to answer them because talking about college makes everything feel real in a way that I sometimes want it to. I have spent so much time looking at universities, imagining what my life could look like in different cities, thinking about the classes I might take and the people I might meet that there are moments when I genuinely cannot wait to leave for college and start whatever comes next.

But then there are other moments when I remember that all of this is happening at the same time as everything else.

I still have school every day. I still have tests and assignments and teachers who do not really care that I have three college essays due. I still have extracurriculars, friends, theatre, family, and all the little things that make up my life in Dubai. I am also trying to make time for myself, which sounds simple until you realize that sometimes even taking an hour to do nothing makes you feel like you should be doing something productive instead.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I am supposed to figure out what I want the next four years of my life to look like.

No pressure.

When everything suddenly feels important

I think one of the hardest parts of applying to college is that it can make you look at your entire life differently.

Things that I used to do because I genuinely enjoyed them can suddenly start feeling like they need to have a reason behind them. An extracurricular becomes something I have to explain. A good grade becomes something I have to maintain. An activity I care about becomes another thing I have to make time for, even when I am already exhausted.

I have caught myself thinking about whether something is “good for my application” before asking myself whether I actually want to do it.

And I don't really like that.

I don't want to spend my last year of high school turning every experience into a line on a résumé. I don't want theatre to only matter because it shows leadership. I don't want the things I care about to become valuable only when I can explain how they contributed to my future.

At the same time, I would be lying if I said I don't care about the applications, because obviously I do. I care a lot. I want to do well, and I want to go somewhere that feels right for me, and I want all the work I have put into school and my activities over the past few years to mean something.

That is probably where a lot of the stress comes from. I care about the outcome, but I am also trying not to let the outcome take over everything else.

The weirdness of choosing where to go next

For me, there is another layer to all of this because I have grown up moving between cultures and thinking about home in a way that is probably different from how some of my friends do.

When people talk about leaving for college, they sometimes describe it as their first big move away from home. For me, the idea of leaving is not completely unfamiliar. I already know what it feels like to adjust to a different environment, to meet new people, to figure out how a new place works and to eventually make it feel normal.

But I think that actually makes this transition more complicated in some ways, not less.

When you grow up as a Third Culture Kid, you get used to the idea that places can become home even if you know they might not be permanent. You collect people, routines, favourite places and memories in different parts of the world, and eventually the idea of having one single place that defines where you belong starts to feel a little strange.

So when I look at universities, I am not only thinking about academics or majors or campus life. I am also thinking about what it will feel like to build another life somewhere else.

And that is exciting. I really want that experience.

But it is also emotional because I know that getting excited about what comes next means accepting that something else is going to change. I can be excited about moving to a new city and still feel sad about leaving Dubai. I can want more independence and still know that I am going to miss my family. I can be ready for a new chapter without actually being ready to close this one.

I don't think those feelings cancel each other out. If anything, I think they probably belong together.

My brain would prefer to panic about everything at once

A few weeks ago, when I was already feeling particularly overwhelmed by everything I had to do, I came across an article by neuroscientist Dr. Dominic Ng called How to Trick Your Brain into Doing Difficult Things. I wasn't looking for an article about college applications, but one of the things he wrote immediately made me think about why I was finding this whole process so difficult.

He explains that “the bigger a task looks, the stronger the emotional resistance your brain creates.” Dr. Dominic Ng's article on Substack

I read that sentence and immediately thought: Yep. That's exactly what I'm doing.

I don't think, I need to work on my personal statement for an hour tonight.

I think, I have to finish my college applications.

Which somehow makes my brain want to do absolutely nothing.

When I think about every university, every deadline, every essay, every requirement, my grades, my extracurriculars and everything else I still have to do, it becomes this giant thing that feels impossible to start. But when I actually break it down, most of it is much more manageable.

One essay.

One paragraph.

One university.

One email.

One deadline.

One afternoon where I decide that I am going to focus on school instead of worrying about college for six hours.

What I found interesting about Ng's article is that he isn't really saying that difficult things suddenly become easy. It is more about changing the way you approach them so that your brain doesn't have to deal with the entire mountain at once.

That made me start thinking about how often I do exactly the opposite.

I look at everything that needs to happen between now and when I hopefully leave for college next year, and somehow expect myself to deal with all of it at the same time.

I am trying to remind myself that I don't have to solve my entire future in one Tuesday evening.

I am also trying to stop feeling guilty for having a life

This might actually be the hardest part.

There is always something I could be doing. If I finish my homework, I could work on an essay. If I finish an essay, I could research another university. If I research universities, I could be doing something for an extracurricular. And if I finally do none of those things and watch Netflix for an hour, there is a tiny voice in my head telling me that I should probably be doing something productive.

But I am starting to realize that this way of thinking is not sustainable.

Taking care of my mental health cannot be the thing I do only after I have finished everything else, because I am never going to finish everything else.

Sometimes I need to sleep.

Sometimes I need to go out with my friends.

Sometimes I need to sit on my bed and scroll through TikTok for longer than I would like to admit.

Sometimes I need to do absolutely nothing.

None of those things mean that I don't care about my future. In fact, I think part of caring about my future is making sure that I actually make it there without completely burning myself out along the way.

I don't want to become the person I think a university wants

This is probably the thought I keep coming back to the most.

It would be very easy during this process to try to create a version of myself that sounds impressive on paper. The perfect student, with the perfect grades, the perfect activities and a perfectly meaningful explanation for every single thing she has ever done.

But I don't think that person really exists.

And I don't want my application to become a performance where I try to convince someone that I have everything figured out, because I don't.

I am still figuring out what I want to study. I am still learning what matters to me. I am still changing my mind about things. I am still trying to understand what kind of person I want to become.

Maybe that is actually the point.

The college application process can make it feel like you are supposed to know exactly who you are before you even leave high school. But I think it is completely normal to still be figuring that out.

Especially when you have grown up between places, cultures and different versions of yourself.

So right now, I am trying to let myself be excited about what comes next without constantly worrying about whether I am doing everything perfectly. I am trying to work hard at school without making my grades the only measure of whether I am doing well. I am trying to keep doing the activities I love without turning every one of them into an application strategy, and I am trying to take care of myself even when there is still a very long list of things I could be doing.

I don't know exactly where I will end up next year.

I have some ideas. I have some hopes. I have a few universities that I can already picture myself at, and others that I am still trying to understand.

But maybe I don't need to know yet.

For now, I am still here.

I am still going to school, still going to rehearsals, still talking to my friends, still figuring out my applications, still having good days and completely overwhelming ones.

And maybe that is the part of this whole process that I don't want to forget.

While I am busy trying to build my future, I am also living my present.

I don't want to miss it.

This reflection was inspired by Dr. Dominic Ng's article, “How to Trick Your Brain into Doing Difficult Things,” which made me think about the way I was approaching college applications and why something that I genuinely care about could also feel so overwhelming.