You are not alone

I’ll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour. I’ll be there for you, like I’ve been there before. I’ll be there for you, cause you’re there for me too.

-The Rembrants (and, ‘Friends’)

Sometimes, life is really fucking hard. Like the time I set out for a trip to the store to buy pesto and ended up in the emergency room, or the time I whimsically teetered on the totter and, again, ended up in the emergency room, things can always go wrong. And that can get overwhelming. So, should we just give up, and give in to the urge to crawl under the duvet and pretend to be sweaty corpses for days at a time? This time, I’m going to say no.

Something I’ve realized recently is that—even though it might not always seem like it—there are always people out there that are ready to help you if you’d just ask. Like your Douglas Students’ Union. As Sophie Isbister discovered in her feature article this week (page 12), the DSU has a number of resources—like advising and assisting students with academic appeals—that few students are aware of. In fact, when talking about Sophie’s article with students this week, the most common responses I got were “What’s an ombudsperson?” and “I didn’t know there were people out there doing that…I wish I’d known before!”

We all love to complain about how hard our lives are, so why aren’t more of us taking advantage of the help that’s out there?

The thing is, as Sonia Panesar suggests in her Opinions article this week (page 16), with all our so-called “social” media, our society has become weirdly isolated; with young people in particular glued to their devices, it can be hard to recognize the support and resources around us. As the semester chugs along closer to its end, try to take some time away from your study-induced fog and look around you. As Tanya Davis says in one of my favourite poems, “You could be in an instant surrounded if you need it.” So, if you need help, just ask.

SHARON MIKI