Embrace Change This Semester

The beginning of the year loves a clean story. A ‘new year, new me’ that comes with a planner and a life that looks manageable on paper. But if this issue’s theme is “supernova,” then we should probably stop pretending change is tidy. 

A supernova is not a gentle evolution. It is a star reaching a point where it cannot hold itself the way it used to, so it breaks open into something violently bright. That kind of pressure feels familiar at TWU at the beginning of the semester: Outlook inbox refills, Moodle lights up with new syllabi and the break turns out to have been more of an intermission.  

Some of us went home, and some of us did not. Some of us worked full-time over the break. After all, rent, tuition and groceries do not take seasonal holidays. And while we hit submit on Moodle, professors spent the break grading finals, answering emails and building spring Moodle pages. 

TWU, for all its rhythms and long walks in the rain, is full of people working toward something. We are all pushing toward greatness.

However, if you only measure greatness by what other people can see, you will become a stranger to yourself. 

We do not talk enough about the quiet violence of self-growth, the way becoming “better” can feel like tearing off an old layer of skin. The fact that choosing a new direction can mean disappointing people who liked the old version of you.  

A supernova does not get to keep its old shape. It cannot, and neither can you. Becoming someone new usually requires abandoning versions of yourself that used to keep you safe. Most importantly, a supernova does not apologize for changing.  

That is because there is nothing wrong with becoming unrecognizable to survive. Become unrecognizable to your old habits and become unrecognizable to the version of you who confused productivity with worth. You might even need to become unrecognizable to other people. 

The fact is, you made it through last semester and you showed up again. This year, think about yourself and take time to reflect. Reflect not as a performance or a New Year’s resolution that you abandon by mid-February, but as a practice.  

Now is the time to notice what makes you feel alive and what makes you feel numb, notice where you are pretending and where you are growing. Then choose one brave change, one decision for which your future self will thank you. That change may make you feel a little unrecognizable; however, that might be the point. Become unrecognizable to the habits that were pulling you down. Ultimately, the version of you who made it through last semester did something admirable: you survived. However, survival is not the finish line; it is the foundation. 

Let this semester be your supernova. Not a collapse that destroys you, but a collapse that inspires you to change.