senior columns

Elli Lahdesmaki

A little over a year ago, I spent every second I could away from my home: hanging out with my friends daily, going out for lunch, working part time, anything I could. I was obsessed with following through with all my school work, sports and what- ever other extracurriculars would look good on my college applications. I kept myself busy and distracted because I thought that was what I had to do. Then, out of nowhere, I was forced to basically drop everything and huddle in my room behind the bright screen of my laptop. Most of my extracurriculars were impossible to continue without breaking every CDC guideline in the book. At first, I thought I was going to be bored out of my mind. But spending all that time alone was a blessing in disguise for me.

I didn’t realize how critical spending time by myself is. By simply being alone, I learned new things about myself and rediscovered interests. I realized that I had lost touch with myself from being so busy all the time. Without all the obligations, I was able to be alone with my thoughts, figure out what I love to do when I’m alone and get a better understanding of myself and the world around me.

Alone time is crucial in order to grow self love. And while this quarantine worked as a wake up call for me to realize that, I don’t want to only spend time by myself when a pandemic hits (because that would be ridiculous). Before the pandemic, I was doing things that I liked and avoiding things that I absolutely hated without internalizing the meaning behind any of it.

That’s not to say that other people (friends and family and even complete strangers) are not important in your life, because they are. But if you are constantly surrounded by others, it’s much more difficult to figure out your own individuality. I was always around people because it never occurred to me that I could genuinely have fun just by myself.

My advice: Surround yourself with people who support your growth — high school is a period of time where most of us are discovering ourselves and growing into our favorite versions of ourselves. In order to continue growing, being around people who inspire you and who you look up to is so important for your own growth. But also remember that having alone time is just as crucial. You have to be alone with your thoughts, with no distractions, in order to self reflect. It’s self reflection that allows you to better yourself, develop yourself and grow as an individual. Learning to love spending time with yourself is something that will benefit you in so many different ways in your life.

I did not have a good time in sixth grade. Classes were boring, middle schoolers were dramatic and the only saving grace was Taylor Swift releasing her iconic 2014 album “1989.” Then I got Spotify.

Instead of using my family’s iPod, which contained almost exclusively ’80s rock or sitting through ads on YouTube, I had access to unlimited music. Everything from “Today’s Top Hits to obscure choral adaptations of Croatian folk songs were at my fingertips.

Despite the wealth of music available to me, I fell into listening to the same songs, albums and artists on repeat. Over time the music changed, but the repetition (and Taylor Swift) stayed the same as I resisted Spotify’s algorithms desperately trying to introduce me to new music.

Fast forward a few years to 2020, when I start writing for The Talon. Predictably, most of my articles are about music, but they all ran into the same roadblock: I had a very limited number of bands and styles to compare new artists to. It wasn’t sustainable for me to compare every band to The 1975 (despite the variety of genres their music occupies).

So I made a goal for 2021 to listen to one new album per day. The rules are simple: I can’t have listened to the whole album before, I have to listen to it in order and I can’t skip songs. The last rule proved to be the most difficult, especially when suffering through Harry Styles’s “Fine Line.”

Now I’ve grown to love my daily ritual and I’ve started appreciating Spotify’s effort to introduce me to new music. I’ve discovered new favorite artists like Caroline Polachek, favorite albums such as boygenius’s “boygenius”, Def Leppard’s “Pyromania” or Fleetwood Mac’s “Tango in the Night,” and listened to artists beyond their hit singles. I also added a secondary goal to listen to one album from each year from 1970 to 2021, which led to, among other things, a deep dive into the loud distorted guitars and wispy vocals of the shoegaze era. Most importantly, I’ve listened to hundreds of hours of new music and greatly expanded my music taste.

I haven’t only been expanding my horizons in terms of consuming music, however; I’ve also learned to step out of my comfort zone in other parts of life. I applied to and considered going to school in the United Kingdom, a far cry from my southern California-centric college list. I’ve worked on projects in audio mixing and production, taught myself two new instruments, experimented with new recipes, and had many more new experiences.

Though it may seem like a small change, my album goal encourages me to consistently step out of my comfort zone and try new things, which will undoubtedly be beneficial as I go to college. And wherever I end up in the future, I’ll have Spotify with all of my favorite music, both new and old, to accompany me.