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Voices of ACES Blog

Slow Down, Senior Year

Mary Carroll

This summer I was on a family vacation, and my aunt casually asked me “what’s next?”  I froze, and my mind started racing thinking about my senior year, my internship, my leadership positions, and the big job hunt.  I thought for several seconds (silently panicking), and she looked up at me and said, “I just meant what’s next for this afternoon?”  

I love planning, which is probably one of the biggest reasons why I am in financial planning.  But, so often, I am mentally preparing myself for the “what’s next?” that I lose sight of the “what’s now”.  The last couple weeks I attended two different financial planning conferences, one in Charlotte and then one in Boston.  Somewhere in between there I had class, exams, homework assignments, an internship, and club obligations.   When I returned from the trip, I found myself at McKinley Health Center with a sore throat, and the Registered Nurse asking if I have been getting sleep? 

Recently, I met a woman at a conference who explained a Buddhist idea of Monkey Mind to me.  It’s the idea that everyone has crazy, energetic, and competing monkeys inside of their head, and you have to figure out how to control them and stay in the present.

Recently, I attended FinCon, a media/money conference, where I got to meet a lot of super awesome professionals.  When asked why I attended the conference I would respond with a “well, I’m just trying to figure out what I should do when I graduate”.  Usually, this was met with laughter and various statements of, “I’ve been working for 15 years, and I’m still trying to figure it out!”.  

Slow down, senior year.  Give me a chance to take it all in.