Take time to smell the roses
September 27, 2006
There are 233 days until Commencement, approxmiately 192 hours until the start of Fall Break and 40 lines until you reach the end of this column.
We spend the majority of our time in anticipation, hoping to make it through the next year, the next week or the next day. However, sometimes when you spend so much time looking ahead, you miss out on the events that are right in front of you.
And before you know it, you’re already half-way through the first semester of our senior year.
These four years fly by faster than you think One day you’re a freshman, full of ambition and enthusiasm and have an entire college career ahead of you. The next, you’re a senior with a job (or depending on your major, a one-way ticket to your parents’ basement).
Rather than tell yourself, “If only I get through this (insert midterm, paper, practice or any other event on your horizon), I’ll be fine,” why not enjoy what you have now?
Soon, you won’t be sweating a test or a paper or a project. It’ll be mortgage payments, car payments or (gasp) tuition payments. Much like a well-placed gym class dodge ball, life hits you right between the eyes.
Enjoy the goofy things about college. Savor all of the unfortunate little things you must do while in college (namely the work). View these as the tax you must pay in order to do the things you really want to do.
Stay up until 4 a.m. playing Diablo II, talking with your roommates or spending unhealthy amounts of time in newspaper offices printing a product that goes largely unappreciated by the student body. You’ll never be here again.
This is not a free pass to act irresponsibly. If nothing else, now more than ever you should be learning that your actions have consequences.
But it doesn’t mean you should be in a rush to be 45-years-old. Most of us have had internshps. Ask anyone you’ve worked with if they would rather be in college or at his or her job. If you find anyone who wouldn’t trade the responsibilities of middle-age for the responsibilities of a 19 year-old co-ed, let us know.
College lasts four short years. Most of us do not always enjoy attending classes, but it sure beats working for a living, especially when graduation is right around the corner. Enjoy it while you can.
The grass isn’t always greener, especially when you’re the one who is expected to mow it.