Hey friends,
Between 2016 and 2017 as I applied to schools abroad, I made a bunch of interesting friends. We spent days and nights discussing SAT questions, reviewing each others essays and glossing over university websites filled with photos of grandiose buildings and well mowed lawns. We talked about the hopes and dreams that we held as future Harvard students and for those of us dating, we spent hours counter checking how long it would take to travel to our boyfriend’s school in New Jersey.
However, we also debated a lot about stuff that we would have to confront while in America! Racism, religion, etc. Religion almost certainly always came up in these conversations with my already then elite agnostic friends…and for hours they would grill me on my devout Christian life. But that passed and life moved on as I settled into the University of Choice and my friends flew abroad. That was until last week when one of my old friends, now a physics major abroad called me.
As usual I complained about my campus frustrations and how I never feel as if I am growing. He then asked me how my religion is and I told him quite the same save for the fact that my degree has exposed me to always pause and view things from a spectrum. For instance, why the cross had to be followed by colonialism and what was so wrong with out traditional religion. For the next couple of minutes, I kept explaining theories that I had learnt from class and books that I had picked along the way to make a case.
My friend then paused and said…“You know, if you really think about it, you have grown!”-at which I chuckled. Whenever I think about the last couple of years of my life, I am often tempted to think that I have not grown, that I have not seen the world yet, that my thoughts are still hazy, that I am behind in life. But as my friend made me realize last week, growth just like change is always happening even when you don’t notice it.
Have a great week ahead!
Ngoiri ❤️️
Tweet
Share