This blog was written by Semester 2 intern, Pranay Reddy Ravula.
Some days, I wake up and the world already feels too loud even before my laptop opens. Notifications, messages, reminders for tutorials I forgot I had. It’s like life at uni comes with its own background noise that never switches off.
Everyone’s moving fast. You scroll through your feed and it looks like everyone’s ahead, getting internships, networking, presenting, creating. Meanwhile, you’re just trying to convince yourself that making it to class with coffee in hand on time still counts as progress.
This semester, I realised I’d forgotten what silence feels like. Not the kind without sound but the kind where your mind isn’t performing. Where you’re not rehearsing what to say in your next presentation or calculating how much of your assignment is left. Just present.
Somewhere between the group chats, deadlines, and discussions that went off-topic halfway through, I started craving slowness.
What if I didn’t check my emails the second I woke up?
What if I gave myself a morning without feeling guilty about not being productive?
What if I let myself do nothing and let that be enough?
Because the truth is, boredom is underrated. That’s where ideas breathe. That’s where creativity sneaks back in, usually at 1am when you’re too tired to care about being perfect. That’s when you remember who you are, beyond grades, group marks and LinkedIn updates.
Uni constantly teaches us how to do more. But lately, I’m learning the opposite, how to pause.
How to walk slower between classes. How to not multitask through lunch. How to be okay with not hustling every second.
Maybe that’s the real achievement of this semester.
Not what I finished but what I finally stopped chasing.
Not the resume lines I added but the pressure I learned to release.
Because sometimes the most academic thing you can do is breathe and realise you’re already enough.
So if the world feels loud right now, pause. Listen. There’s a version of you waiting in the quiet, the one who doesn’t need to prove anything anymore.
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