Tip 7: Don't Let Your Pendulum Swing Too Far

Sometimes coming to college gives you an opportunity to break out of some situation or circumstance that hampered you in high school. For example, maybe your parents were over-protective, maybe you had no social life, maybe you played it really safe. When you get to college, sometimes it's tempting to swing really far in some opposite direction of where you were in high school. Going to some extreme (like partying all the time, never spending time alone, or taking haphazard risks just because you can) often leads to unhappiness. In the push to get away from where you've been, you go too far in the other direction and wind up out of whack. Think of your tendencies and patterns and habits as things that should swing like a pendulum. You want to keep the swinging steady and manageable - near the center - or you risk taking yourself on a wild ride that you'll soon want to get off.