1. Alongside my studies
University did not play a big part in my life. I went to roughly the classes I had to, because I was working at the same time. As a student living hand to mouth, month to month, this sounded logical, and since I was working instead of going to class, I thought that was all the options I had.
At eighteen or nineteen, inexperienced as I was, I had little idea what to do with my time when I studied whenever I was not working and worked whenever I was not studying. For a while I folded clothes in a clothes shop, and in the evenings I clicked my way around design software on a laptop that was already ten years old. That is the reason you are reading this article today.
2. Achieving at any cost
My life was about performing and being a little better every day than the day before. I thought student years were there to lay the groundwork for everything that later leads to financial security, and I was ready to put everything else aside for it.
This way of thinking easily gets stuck in your head, and you start measuring your worth by how much you own and how much money sits in your bank account. Since by my early twenties I thought I was too clever and independent, I spent most of those years under the false belief that our worth is measured in our performance and our possessions.
3. A different yardstick
Today I know that this is not the case. If I were a student now, I would base how I see the coming years on things that really matter, starting from the idea that the true mark we leave on the world is measured by how many people’s lives we were able to touch for the better.
There is nothing wrong with performance in itself, and work is still an important part of my life. The trouble starts when you measure yourself by it alone, because then every hour not worked feels like a loss and every minute spent on anything else feels like a luxury.
I see this other way of thinking most clearly in students who, alongside studying and working, still make time to brighten someone else’s day. If I were starting today, I would look for a community like that.
4. The Amigos
The volunteers of the Amigos for Children Foundation (Amigos a Gyerekekért Alapítvány), a Hungarian charity, are university students who regularly visit children recovering in hospital. With friendship and playful language learning they make the time spent in hospital happier and easier, and for a while the children can step out of their everyday hospital routine.
They know exactly the answer to the question I spent so long thinking about, namely what to do alongside studying and working. And they are paid in a currency worth far more than money, in children’s smiles.
5. What I would tell myself today
It is important to understand that during our university years we can shape other people’s present as well as our own future. Work and study are great, yet sometimes it is worth giving a chance to someone or something far more meaningful. It may sound odd coming from me, but the achieving and the to-do list will wait.
If you are a student, or know a student wondering what to do with their free time, show them Amigos, they can read more about the foundation at amigos.hu. Not every hero wears a cape, though plenty of them wear a green jumper.
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