Sometimes, you find some really great things on the internet. You could be on a certain website with a certain purpose and then leave that website with more than you intended. I mean this in a good way, of course.

A little while ago, I was on the website that has saved the GPA of any student that has trouble understanding Shakespeare or any other kind of literature: Sparknotes. Right on the homepage, part of those moving slide shows that immediately catch your eye upon entering a website, were the words, “The Introvert’s Guide to College”.

For someone like me, it’s like I was meant to see that. Because I’ve been struggling with my goal a little bit, this was like some encouragement from the internet gods.

The article was written by a college introvert herself, so to receive advice from someone so similar was great. Here are a few excerpts:

 Don’t knock yourself out yourself trying to join activities. Going to college means having to level-jump, in classes and in everything else. All of a sudden, you have more work, and more time to do it in. This means that many college students lose their minds going out all the time, trying to “live it up.” But for us introverts, that doesn’t come easily or naturally—and that’s okay! You don’t have to go out of your way to have something going on every night.
 
Now, I’m not saying you should completely succumb to your inner Quiet Guy/Girl and spend all your time in your room. Fight your instincts to hide when it feels appropriate. But remember that homework is important, and so is solitude. Quiet nights are definitely okay. It’s all about balance.

Do not believe everything Facebook implies.  Facebook is full of inside jokes tagged with friends, hundreds of pictures of people doing goofy things in libraries, dorm rooms, restaurants and hang-outs around campus, and basically bunches of “proof” that everybody else is happy and peppy and busy and social. I felt pretty defective for a while, thinking that everyone but me was out having the time of their lives. But after talking to some of those happy-status-and-picture friends, I find that it’s not really all it’s cracked up to be.
 People are obsessed with documenting their social times for the very reason that they want to prove they’re having a blast to their Facebook friends. But that doesn’t mean sad, frustrating, lonely days don’t happen alongside all the goofy ones people post about.

Those two pieces of advice really stuck with me. Trying to find a good balance between schoolwork and a social life is very difficult, but I still know what should come first. I’m glad I’m doing the right thing when it comes to that, because I’ve always felt really lame for not being able to do anything fun.

As for Facebook, I’ll admit that I’m not an avid Facebooker. I really just use it to keep in touch with high school friends and distant relatives. I’m not one of those people that will update their status every few hours or post pictures of any and everything. I will admit, though, that seeing pictures of everyone having fun and reading statuses about one event or another has always left me feeling a little boring.

It never even occured to me that I’m not the only one that has boring, uneventful, borderline depressing days. People on Facebook will only show you what they want you to see. Usually, that’s going to be something that makes them look favorable in the eyes of all their friends. I need to remind myself that every single person has the lame days. I happen to have a couple of fun days myself, I just don’t plaster it all over the internet and that’s okay. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Other than that article, I also stumbled across something nice on Tumblr. For anyone that doesn’t know, Tumblr is a blogging website where people can post or “reblog” images, videos, and other posts that they like. It’s more of a recreational thing, something to kill time with.

On a blog called Brotips, a place that hands out cool-yet-sage advice to Tumblr’s youth, I found this little gem:

I immediately had to reblog that one. (Reblogging = taking someone else’s blog post and re-posting it on your own blog, with due credit to the source, of course)

The thing about the internet is that a lot of motivation is received in the form of words. I’m a firm believer that words are a very, very powerful thing. They can make you or break you. If you need encouragement to do anything at all, you can easily find some motivation on the internet.

You might even stumble across it by accident.