Lost and Found

In college, students ask a lot of big questions: What does this all mean? What is my purpose? What is most important to me? Who am I? Is there more to life than what's in front of me? We ask ourselves these questions throughout our lives, but many psychologists have pointed to the age of traditional college students (18-24) as the time in the lifespan where our thoughts and feelings about the big questions get more complex. When we're children, much of life is black and white. There are clear-cut rights and wrongs. There are good things and bad things in the world. The answers are either yes or no. These ways of knowing are referred to as dualistic, or dichotomous.

But when we hit that young adult stage, it's as though someone has showed us the puppet strings, or given us a pair of glasses that split the black and white into a full spectrum of color. Suddenly, getting a right or wrong, a yes or no about anything in life is difficult, which can be very frustrating for students and those of us who work with them.

What do we do when there is more than one right answer? This past week, Dr. Carney Strange, professor at Bowling Green State University, came to speak at the MSU Raines Colloquium in our department. Dr. Strange has spent much of his life thinking, researching, and writing about the ways students answer the big questions in college, and how they come to incorporate (or not) spirituality into their existence.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be part of a small group of students who had lunch with Dr. Strange before his talk. In our group conversation, we talked about the disorienting dilemma of college attendance, and how many of us felt firmly rooted in our respective faiths before we started college, only to find out that unquestioned belief could suddenly, jarringly be open to interpretation- and that this meant we had the freedom to begin the process of self-authorship, the writing of our own stories and lives.

Dr. Strange asked many more questions than he answered in our spiritual discussion, and later in his talk. But, I think that was the point. Figuring out who we are, what we are meant to do, and where we are going involves asking a lot of questions, and doesn't always result in a single, right answer. At one point, Dr. Strange asked our small group at lunch why we thought the college experience results in so many students' abandonment of previous religious or spiritual belief. It's scary to come to terms with the fact that your way, your beliefs, your faith is not the only way, nor the right way under the scrutiny of others. In college I felt as though I lost my beliefs and sense of spirituality. But, what I have realized in the past year or so is that spirituality is not something you can lose. Spirituality is an integral part of me, it IS me, I never lost it, I just was not focused on or exploring that part of me in college.

I think this is the case with multiple parts of our identities. We may not always be focused on our race, gender, education level, socioeconomic status, or beliefs, but that doesn't make them any less a part of who we are. I have come to realize in the last year that my spiritual self is a very important part of who I am, and that has little to do with religion, as I always thought was essential in college. I know I need time to stand still, quiet my mind, and feel at peace. I know that giving to and helping others is the most important thing I can do in life, and it is the way I hope to leave a mark on the world. I think that we are all connected in some what, and know that I am most happy and content when I've made the road a little easier for someone else. And if those things aren't spiritual, I don't know what is.