As the new year begins, people look forward to fresh starts, new priorities, and happier, healthier lifestyles. Considering the heavy impact our relationships have on us, curating new patterns and breaking some old ones can help make 2025 the most successful year yet.
Relationships infiltrate every aspect of our lives, even activities that seem solitary because they affect our mindsets. For example, how comfortable one feels at home or around friends can shape their confidence for the good or the bad. Junior Adison Schoemehl said “I feel like people don’t realize how much friendships impact other areas [of your life] like school, and how you do on tests.”
Schoemehl hopes in 2025 to develop deeper friendships which for her look like hanging out more often and having more consistent communication. Typically in her relationships, Shoemehl said she “values humor, and it’s important that they understand me…so being compassionate and considerate for sure.”
Like Schoemehl, sophomore Taiyo Chiba also hopes to strengthen his relationships. Chiba said “I become friends with a lot of people but I don’t really hang out with people outside of school and I want to change that and be more deeply connected with others.”
In terms of building connections, senior Lydia Pochueva said “I am someone who always needs people to match my unseriousness…Also I would say humility and wanting to give, people who say ‘Hey we are a community and beyond just friends, I see you as a human being so I care about you.” She values humanitarian individuals. This year Pochueva said she wants to break her habit of “shutting down whenever there’s been experiences of extreme stress” to help advance her current relationships.
Working on vulnerability and receiving can often be challenging for people in their interactions with others. Schoemehl said “I think it’s easier for me to give, and I feel like I’m better at hearing out other people’s problems rather than telling others my own.” She also hopes to be more spontaneous in 2025 and say yes to more extracurricular plans.
Pochueva said her usual style of giving and receiving is “to give as much as I can and then I disappear.” She recognizes this isn’t a healthy pattern of behavior and said she hopes to become “more stable in how [she] show[s] [her] appreciation to other people, because the last thing [she] would want is for people to think [she’s] taking them for granted.” We all have important people in our lives who are consistent, who help us stand tall after we’ve fallen, and demonstrated appreciation – like Pochueva said – is a way to hold tight to those people we need and make ourselves reciprocally available.
Chiba said he wants to improve on his “open communication. It’s great to have that and I like to be talkative so people who can get on the same vibe and talk a lot. And also be serious when you need to be.” He also recognizes some of his disadvantageous patterns.
Another challenge many people can commiserate with is “being able to ‘cut people out’” as Pochueva said. In other words, knowing when a relationship is no longer salvageable and is more toxic than beneficial. Pochueva said “it’s a very difficult life skill to learn because you think ‘This person mattered to me at one point, this person has done so much for me at one point.’” When these thoughts begin to overtake the more logical, evidence-based evolution we’re trying to embark on, Pochueva said it's important to, “really understand that people do change and even if you appreciate a person, you can still grow apart.”
Looking for and building with supportive, open individuals who are grounded and genuine seems to be a common goal for Campo students this new year. When the going gets tough, it's important to remember we not only can search for others who share our values, we can also work on emulating them to contribute to a joyous, thriving environment on campus.
