A favourite quote of mine is one by bestselling author John Green when he gives advice in his YouTube video What To Do With Your Life and it goes: ‘In the end, what you do isn’t going to be nearly as interesting or important as who you do it with’.
As someone who gravitates more towards introversion, choosing to spend time with people is often the result of conscious decision. I suppose this could be the case with people who identify as extroverts as well, but I really have to put the time in. The fact of the matter is that the majority of things I enjoy doing, or rather have come to enjoy doing, involve, well, not being involved … they’re solo activities. As such, I need to constantly remind myself, as is aptly summarised by the above quote, of the importance of friendship in one’s life and actively pursue the formation and maintenance of them. Especially so because I find that as study or work start to take more substance in one’s life, friendships tend to take the backburner.
I’ve asked a couple of older classmates of their experience at university so far and a lot of them credit how enjoyable, or not, their time there is (a factor I consider essential) to the people they know. “It all depends on if you know the right people” they say, alluding to how the friends you meet there make all the difference. I vehemently agree with what the author suggested: nothing is as significant as the (preferably, nice) people you know in your life. I also think that strong links with other individuals is the result of effort put in - I regard it as an investment even. Not to forget, it is an extremely crucial component of a happy life, if not the most important.
