Putting It In Perspective

As finals, summer jobs, friendships, relationships and that
impending feeling of doom called graduation threaten to unravel my frail
sense of sanity, the question I am constantly asking myself is not ‘how will
I pull through?’ but ‘why am I doing all this?’
On a purely practical level, college degrees lead to better jobs, which
lead to more money, which lead to more things, which lead to…I don’t really
know what more things lead to, but I get the feeling it isn’t happiness.
Before I wax philosophical, let me just say how grateful I am to know where
my next meal is coming from, that I have a loving family and that I am free
to choose my life’s path. It’s just that I find it so easy to lose sight of
these things and get caught up in the day-to-day. It’s easy to swallow the
pill of the things that I should be doing. I should be in school, dating,
being well-rounded, giving back to the community, saying my prayers, and so
on, ad infinitum. But what makes life worth living is being able to take a
step back and ask, ‘If I died today, would I be proud of the life I lived?’
And I would, but I know that I would have taken less time to worry and more
time to smile. Please excuse the nauseating sentimentalism, but in a time in
my life when the big picture often seems blurry, sometimes it’s just the
right medicine.
The only piece of advice I feel even moderately qualified to dispense to
those feeling the pre-graduation crush is: don’t stop asking the tough
questions. Sometimes they hurt. Sometimes they don’t have answers. But
sometimes just asking is good enough.

-- Ryan James
Assistant News Editor