C’est La Vie
Life is like gambling.
When faced with a decision, you try to make the most educated guess based on the knowledge and experiences you have accumulated up to that point.
Sometimes you’ll hit a jackpot. Other times you’ll go in the red.
Each decision you make, however, is a learning experience, regardless if the consequences are amazing or horrible. Just like with any skill in life, you improve at making decisions the more you make them. It’s only through making countless decisions through the years that we become wrong less often, but the fact remains that we will always be wrong about something.
Yet, these decisions can result in great success. or profound regrets, as was my case.
In the span of one week, I graduated from university for the last time, turned 26, said a final goodbye to my friends and colleagues, and tragically lost two friends.
Needless to say, it was an emotional rollercoaster. I had no idea whether to celebrate a major life milestone, or take that time to mourn my friends. At the same time, I had to come to terms with the fact that my youth is slowly coming to an end. I’ll never be a student again, I’ll soon move out of my parents’ house, and I’ll have to pay my own phone bill (which really stings).
Throughout the two years of my master’s program, I focused only on my job and classes. I wouldn’t get involved with extracurriculars. I wouldn’t attend university events. Hell, I wouldn’t even stay on campus any longer than I needed to. The second my class or shift ended, I would be speeding on the highway to get home as fast as I could. And that, was the biggest mistake I made in those two years.
My obsession with completing my degree blinded me to many things. Knowing this was my last semester ever as a student, I told myself I would make the most of it and get involved on campus so I don’t have any regrets once I graduated.
Well, it took 12 weeks of blindly working on my degree for those regrets to come and haunt me.
It wasn’t until the end of the semester that I realized the time I wasted and tried to make up for the three months I lost in just three weeks. To try and conquer my FOMO, I started running like a chicken with its head cut off in the last weeks to fit in every last experience that I can before it was over. It’s from that time that the title of this blog comes in.
“C’est la vie” is a French phrase that loosely translates to “that is life.” I first heard it when I listened to this banger of a song by Cheb Khalid over a decade ago. Because this song is such an earworm, the phrase stuck with me throughout the years, even though it was complete gibberish to me for a very long time. Once curiosity got the better of me and I searched for its meaning, I thought it was a pseudo-philosophical phrase that didn’t carry much weight. It wasn’t until this year that I fully understood how profound it can be.
While many people dismiss this phrase as a self-defeating notion that encourages people not to try to change the situation because they are just getting swept in the tide of life. I, however, see it in a completely different light.
Instead of the doomerism attitude that is often coupled with this phrase, I think of it as indifference. It’s a state of mind that simply observes what is happening around us without assigning any positive or negative connotations to it.
The event is just that. An event.
This idea of not judging things as good or bad, but just observing them in a neutral tone is one of the basics of meditation practice, which has countless mental and physical benefits. Once I connected the dots and understood the wisdom behind that phrase, it quickly became a pillar in my attitude toward life that centers me almost immediately.
I will rarely see my friends again? C’est la vie.
I graduated college for the last time and will start my career? C’est la vie.
I turned 26 and my care-free days are officially over? C’est la vie.
But I didn’t get a chance to say a final goodbye to my friends who passed? You guessed it. C’est la vie.
This one phrase helped me navigate one of the most challenging, chaotic, yet fulfilling times in my life. Whether it’s an Everest high or a Dead Sea low, this phrase encapsulates the insanity of the journey we are all on. By not getting high on my achievements or being depressed about my woes, I was able to quickly quiet the thoughts in my head and instead live in the present. What I realized thus far in these situations is this: regardless of how much we fight against the forces of nature to make the best decisions, life does what it pleases.
That’s why in the age of information avalanches, it’s more important than ever to take the time to slow down and appreciate the moment.
As the curtains began to close on my final semester, I was forced to come to terms with the fact that I won’t have the many pleasure of college anymore. Soon, I’ll be bogged down with the responsibilities attached to adulting and the consequences that will have on my social life. No longer will I have friends within walking distance that I can hang out with on a whim. No longer will my main concern be the grade I got on my last paper. No longer will I easily meet new people every day on my walks across campus or at events.
This last semester will eventually be “the good ‘ol days” within a couple of months, and I will reminisce on the time I spent with my friends and how simple life was. While I do carry many regrets about what I did not do in the brief time I had in college, I was reminded of a quote from a fantastic book I recently read, Tuesdays with Morrie. Morrie is a college professor who was diagnosed with ALS, a terminal disease that paralyzes its victim. He said the following:
For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done. You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened… Make peace. You need to make peace with yourself and those around you.
Or in other words, c’est la vie.
