My new-semester resolution: be present

I’ll be the first to admit it. I tend to think New Year’s resolutions are a bunch of malarkey — and thank you, Joe Biden, for popularizing that expressive phrase. By Jan. 10, I’ve forgotten half the goals I’ve set for myself, and then I begin to hate the other half of the vague intentions I’ve set. (e.g. “Really, Mia? You wanted to ‘worry less’ this year? And how are you going to accomplish that?”)

That being said, there’s just some facet of resolutions that appeals to me. Maybe it’s the attractiveness of a clean slate, the beauty of the oft-Instagrammed cliche “New year, new me.” Whatever the appeal is, I enjoy writing a few resolutions not for years, but for semesters. Here I present to you one of the resolutions I’m taking into Spring 2017 with the hopes that you’ll take it, too.

Here’s my issue. Sometime in the middle of each semester, right in the thick of second exams and hefty paper prompts, my nerves take hold of me. I begin losing sight of my priorities, and I tend to tune out important voices: those of my family, friends, professors and logical internal monologue. Instead, another message plays relentlessly in my head: “You’re not doing enough.”

I usually enjoy my classes and feel like my professors inspire me to complete my coursework and continue pursuing my dreams in philosophy and law — come talk to me in about four years to see if that still rings true, but that’s neither here nor there. When the stress takes over, however, I turn to outlets that “numb” the anxious pain. Suddenly, during the very times I should pay more attention to my lectures and get ahead on my assignments, I’m glued to my iPhone, and I can’t stop checking every social media account I have.

I can’t help it. It’s a nervous tick. I will scroll endlessly through my Twitter feed or bounce between Facebook and Instagram like a best-friend-turned-private-investigator trying to figure out who that girl is in your crush’s new profile picture. The worst part is, I’ll start doing this during classes, and that’s a terrible feedback loop for me. I miss the important notes, I forget the page numbers I need to read, I start feeling lost when I study. And, arguably, the worst part: I’m not fully present anywhere I am.

So, here’s my solution. I will no longer go absent during interesting lectures, on coffee dates with friends or even while I’m walking through campus (Have you noticed the beauty of UF’s trees? They never fail to impress me. But I digress.). This will be the semester I take better advantage of my phone’s Do Not Disturb feature. This will be the semester I act with intention — the semester I am present.

These past two-and-a-half years at UF have felt more like a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments. I don’t want to miss any more because cycling the social media rounds helps me forget the work I have to do. I want to feel engaged in all of my experiences, whether they are good or bad. I want to feel the full length of 45 minutes of lunch with a friend or 50 minutes of a class lecture. If any of this rings true to you, I fully endorse your semester of presence. I won’t be offended if it takes you a little longer to text me back.

Mia Gettenberg is a UF philosophy and criminology and law junior. Her column appears on Thursdays.