Worth Living Ambassador Ashley Wunsch
Hello, my name is Ashley Wunsch and I am a second-year student studying International Development and Globalization at the University of Ottawa. I always had a desire to change the world. A few years ago, I realized that changing the world isn’t only digging wells and building schools, but also taking care of yourself and your mental health, so I started to get involved with organizations surrounding mental health like Worth Living.
Changes
I hate changes. I don’t like to think of myself as someone who is structured, that things need to happen on a schedule type of person. Yet when I stop to think of it, I plan out each day on paper from the second I wake up to the second I go to bed. I get into routines and I like to keep them, it makes everything easier. I mean this is a good thing, I’m organized, but it’s also stressing me out. So the real question I need to ask myself- how do I deal with these changes?
It seems so weird to think of how much of a difference these changes are making, how it feels like I’m giving up a whole side of me, a piece that makes me complete. Yet if I don’t make this change, I’ll never know where I’ll go and into what I’ll progress. I can’t keep holding on to the past and how I used to feel because circumstances have changed and it isn’t healthy anymore. Yet I can’t lie, as much as it hurts to hold on to, it hurts more to let go of, even if I know it must be done. Besides, once the initial band-aid is ripped off, I will feel better and be able to do bigger and better things. After I learn to embrace the change, I’ll be able to open up more time to do other things and find my true self. Although it seems like a mess of emotions right now, I know in the end it will all be okay.
Yet despite knowing all will be fine, in the back of my mind all I can think of is how I’ve never been good with change. I remember in the twelfth grade during carnival clan feud (family feud) being nominated for the person who changed the most throughout high school and then being called as the number one answer. I remember being so confused, thinking I didn’t change. I remember thinking it was a bad thing, automatically assuming people thought I changed for the worse. But I later realized they did not mean it in that way, they meant I was super shy in the ninth grade and by grade twelve, I was more outgoing. They meant I changed in a ‘good way’ I told myself, but mostly that I grew, that I flourished. Changes aren’t always negative things. Sometimes they help us down the road to becoming our own beautiful unique selves. Although I can’t see how these current changes could help that doesn’t mean that they will necessarily be bad. Only time will tell and until then, I will grow from the situation and try to think of the positive outcomes of these changes and not the negative ones.